Jokes

Normally, I'm all about a good joke. But I really think that I hate April Fools Day. First of all because I am not sure how to punctuate it. April Fool's? April Fools'? April Fools? If anyone would like to weigh in on this subject, comment away.

But here is merely the most recently reason why April Fools Day bites.

On April 1, 2008, Ryan North, creator of _Dinosaur Comics_, teamed up with two other web-comic sites to play a mean joke on their collective readership. The joke: North's web address, www.qwantz.com, lead readers looking for their T-Rex fix to a comic titled _XKCD: A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language_. An amusing comic, yes (strip titled "Convincing Pick-up Line"), but no T-Rex. At xkcd.com, readers still searching for _Dinosaur Comics_ find webcomic _Questionable Content_ by J. Jacques. Girls, one with pink hair, talking about cupcakes (#1111: Buckeyeballs of Flavor), but STILL no T-Rex. Not ready to give up the search, faithful qwantz.com readers google the web address for _Questionable Content_ and finally find the new 'hood where T-Rex, et al, have temporarily relocated. April Fools!

Mean: All I wanted was some _Dinosaur Comics_. Plus, Ryan North doesn't know this (yet) but I am writing a paper about his website, and that would have been difficult had it in fact actually disappeared. So, happy April Fools to you too, Ryan North. Thanks for toying with the already fragile emotions of a poor grad student.

And the yet is because I might just email the man himself and see if I can get some information for my paper.

Here is an explanation of why I think this website, and its creator, will make a good paper: Every other day or so, North publishes a new comic on his website. Readers can expect one thing in every strip: the same six frames. The online archive goes back to February 1, 2003, and offers many examples of how one might use ideas of found texts (including theme songs to Fresh Prince and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) within a set frame to create dynamic characters within an extremely static environment. I expect my discussion will focus on these constraints and the use of found texts/variations of found text as related to Oulipo.

Other points of interest: North's involvement with the creation of webcomic _Whispered Apologies_ which accepts submissions of the frames for comics to have their text filled in by one of the staff of comic writers and his website www.everytopicintheuniverseexceptchickens.com which suggests that all wikipedia vandals focus their attention on the article about chickens so that the rest of us can trust the information to be found in all other entries.

What a day.