142: Parody Week: Megatokyo

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Parody Week: Megatokyo

Title text: I just want to give him a hug or something.

Explanation

This comic is a part of the Parody Week, just joking about other webcomics. This series was released on five consecutive days (Monday-Friday), not over the usual Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule, and it comprises the following five parodies:

• 141: Parody Week: Achewood
• 142: Parody Week: Megatokyo
• 143: Parody Week: TFD and Natalie Dee
• 144: Parody Week: A Softer World
• 145: Parody Week: Dinosaur Comics

Megatokyo is a webcomic by Fred Gallagher. Its art and storylines are heavily influenced by Japanese comics known as Manga.

The opening panel sets up a parody of Megatokyo here called megaxkcd. The girl is Ping, a robotic PS2 accessory from the comic. The soft gray-scale art, hand-drawn "shadowed" panel borders, and vertical panel layout also mimic Megatokyo's design.

The joke begins with the main protagonist (probably Piro) falling in love with Ping, a game console accessory, and in today's comic, he is supposed to come to terms with this fact.

But then, the parody is apparently aborted when two characters from the normal xkcd, Cueball and Black Hat, question the parody, as they are afraid of hurting artist Fred Gallagher's feelings. This itself is a dig at the sometimes maudlin and emotionally tender tone of Megatokyo, and in particular the self-conscious resemblance of anxious protagonist Piro to creator Gallagher, who based the character on a twenty-something version of himself.

This is one of the few comics where Black Hat is not his usual classhole self. So even he likes and approves of Fred and his comic! Actually, Black Hat is the one most concerned for Fred's feelings, and he suggests that they should go and cheer the poor guy up, now that he may have taken the parody kind of hard. Black Hat also yells to him that he should not cry, when he and Cueball arrive on his doorstep with a cake with lots of candles.

The title text reiterates the similarity between the style of the comic and the character of the artist behind it, which has been noted elsewhere as well. It also exclaims Randall's feelings for Fred, his webcomic, and its style.

Falling in love with a robot (or using one for sex) was later investigated in the Android series. And on 144: Parody Week: A Softer World, love and robots are again investigated leading to a pregnant robot.

Transcript

[At the top of the panel is the title of the comic inside Japanese quote characters. Beneath this is a text, and to the right of this is a drawing on an anime girl in shirt and skirt, who has blonde hair with very long pigtails, long rectangular earrings, and a blank expression looking slightly down while standing with her arms at her sides. The gray-scale drawing is far from the normal xkcd style.]

megaxkcd

In today's megaxkcd, our protagonist comes to terms with his romantic love for a girl who is a video game console accessory.

[Cueball and Black Hat, drawn in standard xkcd style, talk.]

Cueball: Wait, I'm not sure we should parody megatokyo.

Black Hat: Fred Gallagher does seem like he might take it kind of hard.

Cueball: He really does.

Black Hat: Poor guy. We should try to cheer him up.

[Cueball and Black Hat stand in front of a profile shot of a house with at least two stories. On the left is a mailbox at the curb of the road to the very left. Black Hat stands on the path to the house past the mailbox, while Cueball is holding a big cake with at least three lit candles on top. He holds it up in both hands in front of him presenting it to the closed door in front of him as he stands on the top of a two-step staircase to the front door. There are two flowers beneath him at the base of the stair, and two windows on the side wall of the house, one in each of the two visible stories. The house continues above the panel.]

Black Hat: Fred? Fred, please come out. It's OK. Don't cry, Fred.

Cueball: We... We baked you a cake.

Trivia

• This was the Megatokyo strip released the day before this comic.
• Since the parody week had a comic five days in a row, there would for many other webcomics not be a release on this Tuesday, as many comics use the same M, W, F release as xkcd also does normally.

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Discussion

Isn't it quite unusual that Black Hat does not want to harm anyone in this comic? --Chtz (talk) 22:38, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

There is no indication that Black Hat isn't trying to harm someone. We don't see Fred come out, and we have no idea what Black Hat put in that cake. Black Hat is standing back, not near the cake, which has lit fuses candles on it, despite it not being a birthday cake.

OTOH, this is only #142, from back in 2006. Maybe Black Hat wasn't quite so heartless back then. gijobarts (talk) 01:53, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Well the 72: Classhole comic came long before this. But I also think that when Randall shows that even a Classhole has a soft spot for Fred then it is really serious. So I do not think that Black Hat has anything up his sleeve against Fred. (Have deleted a sentence to that regard in the explanation when I just updated it) --Kynde (talk) 15:28, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

It shows later in the Journal series that Black Hat does have a heart, he just doesn't admit it. Dontknow (talk) 18:26, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure if Journal shows that Black Hat has a heart, or just feels lust/attraction, which IMHO is not the same thing... 172.69.194.207

I agree with gijobarts. I think Black Hat put something dangerous in that cake, we just don't know what. He was probably acting sentimental to get Cueball to go along with it. Danish (talk) 18:08, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

My interpretation of this has always been that Fred is so unfathomably maudlin, vulnerable and (sym)pathetic that even Black Hat takes pity on him. Such is the awesome power of Fred's exceptionally downcast sentimentality. Much like no-one is evil enough to take candy from a baby (re 'Who Shot Mr. Burns') so no-one, not even Black Hat, is callous enough to dick on Fred Gallagher. 172.69.194.207 13:13, 25 June 2024 (UTC)