ToW #2 - Visual Text from xkcd: "Bee Orchid"

Comic from http://xkcd.com/1259/

        XKCD is a long-running webcomic that is focused on scientific and often nerdy topics. Its posts can vary in tone from the most sarcastic and modern to entirely sentimental and sincere. The artist behind xkcd is Randall Munroe, an American programmer, former NASA roboticist, and lecturer. Given the facts of Munroe's qualifications and his eight years' experience running xkcd (with over 1,200 comics produced), it is clear that Munroe's credibility has been long established. XKCD.com, being the 784th most-visited website in the United States, has a rather large and dedicated audience. I, for one, frequent it because of my love of both science and humor.

        This comic is no exception from xkcd's norm: it presents a scientific topic, the bee-courting Ophrys apifera, in a completely sentimental light (see: panel five, a watercolor painting). It also features recurring characters in the webcomic: Megan, the stick figure with long hair; and Beret Guy, the guy wearing the beret. Beret Guy is so consistently sincere in his comics that he has become a sort of indicator for which comics Munroe intends to be sincere and which he does not. As Munroe has established this text as being sincere, his purpose is clearly not to point out the humor or quirkiness in this comic's subject. He implies through his use of the poetic Beret Guy that his purpose is to plainly and humanly show the reader the sad state that the Ophrys apifera is in.
        It is notable that the two characters that Munroe depicts in this comic each fulfill a different aspect of his purpose. Megan explains the scientific value of the orchid, stating its proper name and evolutionary strategy while Beret Guy creates the sentimental tone of the piece, using artistic and emotional language to describe the flower's saddening predicament. Each character could then be considered, more or less, a rhetorical device that Munroe uses to ensure that his comic follows one of xkcd's established patterns: having a scientific topic and a sentimental, sincere tone. In using these devices, Munroe is fairly successful. His comic did not personally touch me very much, but this is almost definitely because I often visit xkcd.com in order to laugh, not to cry. If this text is provided with its intended audience of more emotional science nerds, then it will very likely be effective in its purpose.