Heyyyyyyy, new comic, took too long, late nights, overthinking, author crazy, hallucinations, voices in my head, illusory dancing clowns with razor teeth, internet comics lifestyle etc. Bleargh. Finished, anyway.
IN OTHER, MORE POSITIVE NEWS
So last year there was this comic, and then this year there was this thanks to one of you heroes out there, which is pretty awesome. Big thanks to Ona for the picture, and great call on the Big Stick. Wish i’d thought of that…
live wrong and perspire,
-wr
Virus Comix News 
November 11, 2010 at 1:22 am
Hey, man, I love your stuff, but dropping Southern California into Arizona Bay, that was just mean, man. What did we ever do to you?
November 11, 2010 at 1:46 am
Southern California suffers from being the region where Los Angeles rests its fetid and torrid bowels of consumerism. All the terrible, awful things that makes those who read books more than watch tv hate living in America comes from Hollywood, the poster children of those things live in Beverly Hills, and the demon spawn of a devil culture that guts the once bright future of our country reside in “Gangland”.
Everybody wants to be naked and famous.
November 11, 2010 at 2:24 am
Learn to swim!
Learn to swim!
November 11, 2010 at 5:11 am
…or move to Arizona and start making wine.
November 12, 2010 at 2:16 pm
Oh man, now I have to play that song on full volume. And possibly summon a thunderstorm.
November 16, 2010 at 4:45 am
Mr. Comix author sir, if that really was a Tool reference, you’ve made my week.
December 4, 2010 at 5:34 am
Ironic how the closest real-world approximation to the museum depicted in that comic is the Echo Park Time Travel Mart in Los Angeles.
How’s that taste, hmm?
October 4, 2011 at 11:27 pm
I prefer to think LA and Arizona came to blows over water rights, and a convenient earthquake sank the area before anything could be done about it, and the naming was out of spite.
November 11, 2010 at 1:36 am
Now, why does the Subnormality book have to be theoretical, eh?
November 11, 2010 at 5:28 am
November 11, 2010 at 7:10 am
Yeah my thoughts exactly!
November 11, 2010 at 2:56 am
Awesome comic as always Mr. Rowntree, I absolutely love your drawing style and the interesting details you put in each panel, as a history buff I especially enjoyed the hints toards Operation Downfall and Operation Unthinkable, and I immediately noticed the badass Fliegensarg Mk.1, nice touch!
Keep up the great work!
November 11, 2010 at 1:34 pm
Woah… I’m also a Benjamin F. Maybe you’re my theoretical me… or perhaps I’m you’re theoretical you?
November 12, 2010 at 2:21 am
O SHI-
November 11, 2010 at 2:58 am
When I was in 2nd grade, I wrote a story about a mythical drinking-fountain-with-pop-instead-of-water. It had orange soda. The beginning of the story had some students surprised and happy to find their school water fountain suddenly had orange soda, and the rest explained how the piping and whole system was set up.
I didn’t even like orange soda all that much. I don’t know why I chose it. In the same grade, the teacher had us all try different apples, and choose our favorite one. I choose Red Delicious, only because it had the word ‘delicious’ in its name. I actually hated the taste, but for a few years afterward I tried to convince myself it really was my favorite apple, just because I had chosen it that day. Anyway, I guess my point is when I was a kid my sense of knowing what I liked was a little disabled.
Though not completely. About the same time I decided what my favorite colors were, in order, from most favorite to least. I still remember them: red, green, yellow, blue, black, brown, gray, purple, orange, white, peach, and pink.
November 12, 2010 at 1:28 am
I was totally imagining it with orange soda too. I think that must be the Official Drink of Little Kids or something. I wanted like a swimming pool full of it..
November 11, 2010 at 2:59 am
Speaking of “Los Angeles is an unredeemable shithole and the world would be unequivocally better were it to drop into the sea,” there’s a museum in Los Angeles which is as close to the museum described in this comic as can exist in reality. It’s called The Museum of Jurassic Technology, and if you’re ever in the LA area you really need to visit it.
November 11, 2010 at 4:09 am
which is an amazing place that you can lose hours in and be unsure of exactly what you were doing.
here’s their site http://www.mjt.org/
November 13, 2010 at 10:21 am
thirded. When I read the title I expected the exterior of the museum in the comic to be modeled after the Museum of Jurassic Technology.
October 4, 2011 at 11:30 pm
I seem to recall a somewhat-similar Discovery Museum in the Bay Area, but that was 20 years ago, now. *checks* Yeah, it’s still there.
November 11, 2010 at 3:10 am
This comic was fantastic. Totally worth waiting for.
November 11, 2010 at 4:11 am
Very good. Very imaginative, especially the “uphill both ways.” Overall, brilliant. Perhaps a good concept for a web site, if not reality.
November 11, 2010 at 5:35 am
One small missing detail was the snow that was walked in barefoot.
If this comic existed, I would totally love it!
November 14, 2010 at 5:30 am
Actually, my old school was on the other side of small local valley.
So both ways it would be downhill at first and then an uphill slog.
So, yeah.
November 11, 2010 at 4:54 am
Genius.
An even smarter version of ‘things that could have been but never were’ than The Gernsback Continuum.
November 11, 2010 at 6:23 am
Poor LA =/
November 11, 2010 at 6:34 am
“Ha ha ha ha! It’s [L.A.] gone, it’s gone, it’s gone. It’s gone. All the shitty shows are gone, all the idiots screamin’ in the fuckin’ wind are dead, I love it. Leaving nothing but a cool, beautiful serenity called… Arizona Bay. Ha ha ha! That’s right. When L.A. falls in the fuckin’ ocean and is flushed away, all it will leave is Arizona Bay.”
Fucking loved that reference.
November 11, 2010 at 9:13 am
Ah! … awright, if it was Hicks I’ll forgive and forget 🙂
November 11, 2010 at 6:59 am
All of it, from the cinematic single leaf that starts the slow scroll at the top, to every conversation I ever wanted to have over a meandering beer, I love all of this comic. And I’m impressed by the museum janitor for keeping the outside of those toilets free from the puddles of urine that’d inevitably result from visitors to confused to choose.
“I love that suit…it really brings out your ass” is possibly the funniest thing that will get me slapped when I imminently repeat it to strangers.
Brilliant top-form Subnormality Winston, congratulations.
November 11, 2010 at 7:26 am
I just wanna say that the final statements, that niche ideas can’t exist because we live in an economic darwnism, I just can’t agree with that.
I think it is actually quite the opposite, it is exactly in a big city that you would find something so niche as a theoretical museum. The liveliest a city is economically the more you’ll find there. There’s even a book about it, The Long Tail, explaining how niche markets are feasible.
November 11, 2010 at 7:40 am
I came here to say exactly what Fernando just said: if the economy is large enough, you’re more likely to have niche industries in all sectors, including museums! Think small-town-with-one-grocery-store versus big-city-with-five-organic-locally-grown-co-ops. There’s a reason why Philadelphia can have a medical oddities museum, for example.
Excellent work as usual though.
November 12, 2010 at 1:25 am
For the sake of argument, I bet that museum benefits from patronage, and that’s the key issue i think. Even the Guardian newspaper is dependent on handouts, as is yours truly (currently, anyway). But you’re right that there’s more to the issue than was addressed in the comic, and i’d definitely like to know more about this “Long Tail” book that Fernando mentioned above^.
November 12, 2010 at 8:56 pm
If this comic is being supported by “handouts” then they’re not really handouts as far as I’m concerned.
November 11, 2010 at 7:44 am
221B. That adress alone should have given away the punchline. Brilliant as usual.
November 11, 2010 at 8:22 am
I think that you could probably sell a profitable number of “DEWEY DEFEATS MOTHRA” shirts, were you to make them.
November 11, 2010 at 12:13 pm
That was the laugh-out-loud line in the comic for me, certainly. This was one of those Subnormalities that had my face inches from the screen, trying to read all the little details.
November 11, 2010 at 11:52 pm
Oh god – yes please! If you don’t make a Dewey/Mothra t-shirt I might have to produce one myself. And it’ll probably suck. Stop me from committing this crime against art!
November 12, 2010 at 1:30 am
I’ll definitely consider it. I mean, i’d like to offer some new shirts next year, and i’m not exactly overflowing with ideas..
November 12, 2010 at 1:43 am
Sorry, but “I’m not exactly overflowing with ideas” is something you’re Precisely Not Getting Away With.
November 12, 2010 at 2:37 am
“DEWEY DEFEATS MOTHRA” t-shirt?
Yes. Yes, I will buy.
November 11, 2010 at 8:45 am
The Beatles album title is brilliant!
November 11, 2010 at 10:04 am
Excellent as always!
November 11, 2010 at 10:10 am
Hey one a them pyramids is a crittur!
November 11, 2010 at 10:53 am
Awww I miss Crystal Pepsi too.
November 11, 2010 at 10:59 am
Huh. I was wondering where the ‘Girls who know how to flatter their ass without wearing awful jeans’ exhibit was.
November 11, 2010 at 11:26 am
I enjoyed ‘Our somewhat uneventful lunch with Godot’.
I was wondering what the Indiana Jones movie poster was referencing, did they originally plan to use a different actor other than Harrison Ford? Is it Tom Selleck? (possibly spelt wrong)
Anyway, it’s really really good.
Not enough dinosaurs playing chess, but I’ll let that pass.
TF
November 11, 2010 at 11:49 am
TF: Yeah, they tried several actors for Indy because Lucas had already had Harrison Ford in several movies. They auditioned Kurt Russell and a few others before finally settling on Tom Selleck. Went so far as to start preproduction before finding out that Selleck couldn’t be released from his commitment to “Magnum, P.I.”. So they cast Ford after all.
There are some cool extras on the DVDs showing some of the original auditions. Selleck would have made an interesting Indy.
November 11, 2010 at 11:56 am
Winston, I could read and reread this one for hours just delighting in all the references (even the Subnormality callbacks!). My favorites: the Nazi superplane from the “Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe” strip, the Bill Hicks reference, Tom Selleck as Indy, and the alternate Enterprise (the one from “All Good Things”, is it?). Even the Emperor’s New Clothes look familiar for some reason. A reference to Emperor Norton, or am I reading too much into that one?
Hi, by the way. Just discovered this awesome comic a few weeks ago and went through the archives like a whirlwind. This has become one of my new favorites and I am always delighted to see a new strip.
November 11, 2010 at 1:32 pm
Welcome Panserbjorne… welcome to one of the best comics on the internet. ^_^
November 11, 2010 at 9:00 pm
man you totally got it before me, that is definitly the enterprise from taht one alternate future
so its an alternate future to a potential future
boggles the mind it does
November 12, 2010 at 1:13 am
Yeah, that’s definitely the “All Good Things…” enterprise. As for emperor norton, i wish i’d thought of that…
November 11, 2010 at 12:12 pm
Amazingly beautiful, like always! I also loved the bathrooms… really clever! I feel like there is way more in this strip than I can take in at first glance.
November 11, 2010 at 12:25 pm
Awesome comic! Unless I’m mistaken, the patron is wearing a jacket styled after the Avro Arrow, Canada’s theoretical superfighter from the 60s.
November 11, 2010 at 1:56 pm
The “theoretical museum” one is your best comic ever. The “pop culture” frame made me laugh hard for minutes.
Thanks
November 11, 2010 at 1:59 pm
I like that one! I have to read it some more time to get all the details and references. BTW: I wonder when Krupp sells this elephant-tank-thing?
November 12, 2010 at 1:34 am
WHEN MASS PRODUCED THE ELEFANT MK.VI WILL SINGLE-HANDEDLY BRING THE ALLIED FORCES TO THEIR KNEES!! VICTORY WILL BE SWIFT AND ABSOLUTE! WE EXPECT THE PROTOTYPE TO BE READY BY LATE 1947, MEIN FUHRER! etc.
November 12, 2010 at 7:19 pm
Lol.
Actually, there was a Tank Destroyer (can’t call it a tank because it lacked a turret and a secondary gun) called the Ferdinand Elefant. Big, beautiful, a complete waste of resources, and it only made it to the front lines because of politics between the artillery folks and the tank groups.
Love the visual pun, might have a new favorite comic here.
November 11, 2010 at 2:25 pm
The Soviet room was a must and one of the things that appealed me (including a subtle reference to one of your own comics).
And the LOTR minus the Songs was just plain brilliant.
November 11, 2010 at 2:49 pm
another hugely awesome comic, congrats!
loved the details but i’m sure i’ve lost a few, going over it with the magnifier next 😀
November 11, 2010 at 2:54 pm
I like the idea of who you might be to create something like this.
November 11, 2010 at 3:16 pm
love the small details!
November 11, 2010 at 3:25 pm
are the wish horses just her´s?
November 11, 2010 at 3:29 pm
btw, amazing lot of references… o_0 I just happened to watch Zavtragrad (also with Berlin cup)
November 11, 2010 at 4:08 pm
First of all, let me just compliment you on the sheer detail of the exhibits. I especially like the room full of Wish Horses XD
….also, the ending made me kinda sad
November 11, 2010 at 4:31 pm
Outstanding! Yeah, it’s unfortunate that such a museum would never exist, but there’s no end to “alternate history” fiction if you know where to look. In particular, you might enjoy “Fatherland.” It’s a real eye-opener as to what might have happened had England fell during WWII.
November 12, 2010 at 1:39 am
My mom has that book! I haven’t read it but i remember seeing it back in the day and looking at the fictional maps and images of berlin, and i think that was definitely a part of my inspiration for this. I should definitely actually read the book at some point thought.
November 13, 2010 at 3:51 am
“such a museum would never exist”. I think it is definitely possible to build an evil mega corporation, and then use fraction of the profit to maintain such museum.
November 11, 2010 at 6:56 pm
Have a nice Bear Slayer day! 🙂
November 12, 2010 at 1:16 am
I had to google that, but now that i have let me say a happy Lāčplēša Diena to you too!
November 11, 2010 at 6:58 pm
Another brilliant comic, and I particularly love all the little details burred in this one. I’d love to wander round a museum like this one, moreso if it was itself theoretical, and thus wouldn’t be constrained by aspects of practicality.
November 11, 2010 at 7:58 pm
The theoretical, I’d dare say Borges-styled concept is quite good, and adapted to comedy is suitable for more than a couple laughs. Keep up the good work, your not-so-small-now, but ever as faithful audience delights with every word and line. Thanks!
November 11, 2010 at 8:12 pm
Love the Bill Hicks reference and the “Feed Us” horse. You and your comics are brilliant. It’s good to know that at the very least, great minds are not theorhetical 😉
November 11, 2010 at 8:13 pm
and neither are minds that spell “theoretical” with an extra “h” for some reason 😦
November 11, 2010 at 10:30 pm
Heh, old proposal for Canadian flag by the door. 😀
November 11, 2010 at 10:40 pm
I’ve been reading your comics for awhile now and I absolutely love them! I especially like this one, it reminds me of this book called “The Order Of Odd Fish”.
November 12, 2010 at 12:22 am
OH GOD ITS SO BIG
Thanks 😉
November 12, 2010 at 1:19 am
Man, this one’s really big, and it’s late and I just don’t have enough functioning brain cells at the moment to parse it all. BUT even so I just want to blurt out that the “People who are comfortable with unisex bathrooms” vs. “People who aren’t” totally made my day.
I’ll read the rest in the morning. 🙂
November 12, 2010 at 2:58 am
Nice comic, though I don’t agree that a museum like that wouldn’t be able to survive. Have you heard of some of the museums that are out there?
November 12, 2010 at 10:49 am
Loved it!
Very happy i found this site, keep it up please! 🙂
November 12, 2010 at 10:55 am
Awesome. Love all the little details. Gonna take a while to fully absorb it (“it really brings out your ass”… priceless). Also nice to see Mind-Exploder Girl not wiping out another dude out of existance.
For those interested in alternate stuff, I recommend the novel “The years of rice and salt” by Stanley Robinson. It’s a fantasy story that tells what would have happened if the chinese and arabs had become the dominant powers instead of the spanish conquistadors, the UK, Germany, France, etc.
November 12, 2010 at 11:16 am
Oh. She was a crackhead the whole time! Of course, I should have seen that coming.
November 12, 2010 at 11:25 am
It’s always a pleasure roaming around the museum of your mind, WR.
November 13, 2010 at 4:14 pm
kiss ass. jks
November 12, 2010 at 1:15 pm
I’d LOVE a theoretical museum.
November 12, 2010 at 1:31 pm
Better than “Cats”: I’ll see it again and again!
November 12, 2010 at 1:36 pm
Is 221B a reference to Sherlock Holmes?
November 23, 2010 at 5:23 pm
No shit, Sherlock.
November 12, 2010 at 4:31 pm
I didn’t quite understand the connection to the pink-haired girl and the neanderthals. I always thought of her as being naiive rather than stupid. The guy certainly fit, which confuses me even more
November 12, 2010 at 4:38 pm
I think it is just what she would look like AS a neanderthal… if they were the dominant species on the planet.
November 15, 2010 at 1:26 am
Neanderthals were not stupid. The exact relation between the intelligence of Neanderthals and that of modern humans is unknown, but they had larger brains than modern human, making it quite likely that they were actually smarter. In fact, there is speculation that the reason they went extinct is because they could not find enough food to support the energy demands of their brains.
November 12, 2010 at 6:39 pm
Harsh awakening for bag lady?
Yes!
The same here!!
I think I recognize three of the “pyramids”.
The “3 Royal Hillocks” are 1000+ year old, 11- metre high and also the proudness of my country. Til now…
About bathrooms: The left one should be the most PC one to choose. There was an edItorial about this problem in the paper recently…
Ben,
on the outskirts of nowhere.
P.s. The first panel with all the
leafs is just hilarious. And… that upper left single one! Wow.
November 12, 2010 at 8:29 pm
nice, man
November 12, 2010 at 8:46 pm
I’d love to be able to meet a theoretical me
November 12, 2010 at 9:50 pm
I hate the nit-pick but Santa Clara, CA is in the San Fransisco Bay area. The city marked as “Santa Clara” on the map is Santa Clarita.
Also, if one wants to eliminate Los Angeles and its influence on the world, then Santa Clarita and the Antelope Valley (Lancaster) should be dumped into Arizona Bay as well.
November 13, 2010 at 3:49 am
Much better than “goats”, I think.
November 13, 2010 at 6:10 am
I had a good smile out of that one, reminds me slightly of Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy for some reason.
November 13, 2010 at 9:32 am
That does suck…that would be such a tight museum. Now to find a way to make it a reality…
November 13, 2010 at 10:02 am
I thought it could be kind of a metaphor for the internet myself.
November 13, 2010 at 9:59 am
An N-1 moon rocket!
(The Soviet super-booster comparable to the American Saturn V. Every test launch ended in failure after two minutes or less. Sometimes much less.)
November 13, 2010 at 5:06 pm
I know, it’s depressing just to read about. Huge, technological marvels just exploding on every launch because of tiny screws or whathaveyou. This is the kind of thing that fascinates me, i reckon.
November 13, 2010 at 3:40 pm
Please don’t respond to this camment.
November 13, 2010 at 4:57 pm
Okay. Ah, shit…
November 13, 2010 at 4:06 pm
The comic in tl;dr:
“People refuse to subsidize the things I like, so I’m gonna bitch about it”
November 13, 2010 at 5:08 pm
You’re damn right i’m gonna bitch about it.
November 13, 2010 at 4:20 pm
Was it on purpose that the “people who are comfortable with unisex bathrooms & people who aren’t” doors don’t make sense, as people who aren’t comfortable could still be from both sexes so it would still be a unisex toilet. Also, I don’t think I agree with the unisex bathroom anyways. Its kind perverted of the guys, and i myself would be a bit creeped out to share a toilet with girls, unless it was my partner living with me, but still then only pissing max. Even that is pretty fucking weird. So yeah, i’m “people who aren’t”. Cause c’mon man, does everything with society have to be wrong to you?
November 13, 2010 at 7:11 pm
One could see it more as a joke pointing out the fact that they are not a binary pair. There are actually three groups… people who are comfortable, men who are not, and women who are not. If you make it the either or that it sounds like then it doesn’t work.
November 13, 2010 at 7:14 pm
So, so good. : ) The details! Incredible.
November 14, 2010 at 9:18 am
This is brilliant with great ideas and excellent art.
November 14, 2010 at 12:20 pm
Aww subnormality book theoretical only.
November 14, 2010 at 12:33 pm
Longtime reader, first time poster.
This comic made me smile so much. If there was a museum like this (must check out the jurrassic tech one someday!) I’d be there everyday.
I just love your comics so much, they are the individual highlight of my week.
Dear Rowntree, you are my inspiration (in a completely non-cheesy line sort of way, of course). You’re so much of a genius, you’re a…. genie. yeah.
Keep up the fantasitic and impossibly incredible work! ^_^
November 14, 2010 at 7:58 pm
Love the British Leyland bag.
I so would spend hours checking out the Theoretical Weapons of the Third Reich display.
November 14, 2010 at 9:22 pm
Is that a “STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl” reference in the Soviet section?
November 16, 2010 at 9:40 am
Stalker for life, baby!
November 14, 2010 at 9:59 pm
Brilliant
I just cant agree with the economic analysis tho. There ar eplenty of niches out there and many many more with the Internet today.
November 14, 2010 at 10:03 pm
also, gotta love the piervie v lune poster
November 14, 2010 at 10:19 pm
Nice!, Buran!
November 15, 2010 at 4:21 pm
No more Weezer albums? In my mind, they retired after Green 😀
November 16, 2010 at 9:39 am
if only…
November 15, 2010 at 5:05 pm
Hmmm…kinda makes you think.
November 15, 2010 at 5:08 pm
I love the details! I have to say my favorite was the Tintin reference – I almost missed it, but there it was, sitting next to the other books-that-could-have-been.
November 15, 2010 at 10:01 pm
I love all the little details, especially the book entitled “LOTR without the songs”
Well done, as usual! I’m so glad to see the comments and support grow with each passing week.
November 16, 2010 at 1:18 am
Great one today. Keep those awesome ideas coming! Loved Tom Sellack as Indiana Jones.
November 16, 2010 at 5:11 am
When the girl told the curator how the suit brings out her ass, I went through the comic again, seeing if it did.
November 16, 2010 at 7:49 am
You just made me eat my lunch backwards out my mouth. I now wear a grin sandwich.
November 16, 2010 at 10:59 am
By the way, I think more of your comics should end with Napoleon bursting forth from the sidewalk. I miss those days.
November 16, 2010 at 2:06 pm
Oh, I absolutely loved this!
Keep up the good work!
Signed,
The Theoretical Me who has just read this comic, alias Breeze
November 16, 2010 at 4:45 pm
♥ @ the Barry Lyndon reference at the end, and @ Love’s Labour’s Won
November 16, 2010 at 7:14 pm
I know subnormality is usually pretty cynical, but this one has a pleasant fuzzy feel to it that is nice.
November 17, 2010 at 6:42 am
Loved it. Thanks for brightening a gray day.
November 17, 2010 at 10:32 am
Well done
November 17, 2010 at 1:26 pm
Mind=blown. I loved it keep up the great work.
November 17, 2010 at 2:16 pm
what a great comic/comment on history, human nature and possibilities
November 17, 2010 at 3:18 pm
Great stuff, but the anthro-nerd that’s been bred into me (both parents are paleoanthropologists) feels the need to point out that recent genetic data we’ve gotten on neanderthals strongly suggests that they developed into us, along with cro-magnon. Basically lending a lot of credence to a theory my Dad is a proponent of. Multiregional evolution for the win!
God, I’m a dork.
November 17, 2010 at 4:17 pm
Theoretically, this comic was the highlight of my evening!
November 17, 2010 at 8:49 pm
Now thats what I call NIFTY !
😉 🙂 {*v*} 😛 😀 I.R.
November 18, 2010 at 4:35 am
You should rent these people some space in your museum – they’ve got their own “Imaginary Foundation’ that looks like a good fit: http://www.theundividedmind.com/
November 18, 2010 at 9:29 am
I love your comics. If I need to cheer myself I turn on Neutral Milk Hotel and just flick through a couple dozen for a half hour. It’s such a good time
November 18, 2010 at 4:37 pm
“Hey, wouldn’t it be great if the Museum of the Theoretical was right here-”
WHOOSH!
“Welcome back, alternate Self, we’ve updated the section of comics that Winston Rowntree would have drawn if he had received the same mainstream attention and funding as Lady Gaga gets for acting weird”
November 19, 2010 at 9:45 am
Wow, this episode must have been a lot of work to create. Thanks for putting in so much detail and effort into drawing this. I really enjoyed it!
November 19, 2010 at 1:03 pm
Love it made me laugh
November 19, 2010 at 11:08 pm
nice artwork for a webcomic… too bad you’re a pretentious little shit :p
November 19, 2010 at 11:34 pm
you misspelled “awesome”
November 20, 2010 at 12:04 am
I must strenuously disagree! The artwork is passable, at best.
November 20, 2010 at 8:14 pm
The best way to deal with it is cue up “Burn it to the Ground” while you’re waiting for the comic to load. There’s something about listening to Nickelback while reading a comic that bags on them constantly that washes away all the bad vibes.
November 20, 2010 at 2:06 am
Wow. Okay. I’m frequenting this comic now.
November 20, 2010 at 8:29 am
Winston, you gotta make a joke about all this rubbish about Victoria’s secret fashion show…
This Victoria’s secret thing is everywhere, they even have it on the news websites (like this is meant to be news)
You’ve got to make a comic about how ridiculous all this celebrity obsession is getting
And p.s. I think I’ve been to this museum
November 20, 2010 at 5:15 pm
Very nice visuals. Was a fun comic that I enjoyed.
November 21, 2010 at 5:54 pm
Great stuff! Spent all evening looking/reading your work. This is not a criticism but I prefer your ideas and intellectual concepts to your artwork,which I also enjoy. Ever hear of James Tiptree jr.? I think you might have much in common. Keep fighting the good fight.
November 21, 2010 at 9:33 pm
I have most assuredly heard of James Tiptree Jr., and would count said author as an influence.
November 21, 2010 at 10:05 pm
There’s a Stalker reference in the russian section? Someone please explain it to me; my screen is too small and I can’t see it. Thanks.
November 22, 2010 at 3:24 am
love your comics 🙂
November 22, 2010 at 1:52 pm
Hey, just stumbled upon the theoretical museum comic strip and also the maturity goat diagram. I really enjoyed both pieces!
November 22, 2010 at 6:45 pm
Well, if you enjoyed those, you’ll really love the rest 😀
November 23, 2010 at 8:36 am
*tintin and alph-art*! man, i’ve been looking for a copy of that for years.
November 23, 2010 at 5:14 pm
I’ve just read through the entire archive of Subnormality (no, not in one sitting) and I absolutely love it! This has become one of my favorite web comics now (besides SMBC, Cyanide and Happiness, A Lesson is Learned but the Damage is Irreversible, The Perry Bible Fellowship, etc.) Keep up the good work!
November 23, 2010 at 8:50 pm
I love your comics so hard. I’ve been reading them for awhile but only seem to check them about as often as you post them 😛 so I feel silly adding a little comment waaay at the end after everybody else says everything important…but I figure you should at least know there’s another person who thinks you’re awesome. So thank you!
November 26, 2010 at 11:04 am
That is ruddy brilliant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
November 26, 2010 at 2:04 pm
Wow, that comic blew my mind. Just the right amount of pretentiousness if you ask me. It’s a delicate ballance to mix real opinions with humor, or maybe it just takes balls, either way you pull it off.
November 26, 2010 at 4:50 pm
What’s with the high boots every woman has in this comic?
November 27, 2010 at 12:28 am
My favorite is the Operation Unthinkable newspaper covered partially by her head.
November 28, 2010 at 3:58 pm
That was amazing! Really, the story and the design, loved it.
November 30, 2010 at 2:27 am
interesting- love ontology
November 30, 2010 at 9:23 pm
I figured out another way that would have you walk to school uphill both ways.
Your house is on one end of a valley, the school is on the other. You’d have to walk from your house, perched on one side, down into the valley, and then back up the other side to get to the school.
When I figured this out, I was like “Omg I’m so cool.”
December 6, 2010 at 2:43 am
So, you actually can walk to school up hill both ways. When I was in college living in San Francisco, this is exactly what I did every day for two years. My apartment was on one side of Russian Hill, the school was on the other side. There was no tunnel (near me) through the hill. I walked up hill 4 block, then down hill 4 blocks to get to school. Getting back was the same formula. Therefore, I walked up hill both ways to get to school.
It’s so obvious that none of us think of it until we actually have to do it. ^_-
December 6, 2010 at 10:30 pm
This is by far your most intelligent and most entertaining strip yet! It was like something out of The Sandman.
December 10, 2010 at 1:15 am
This is awesome.
December 23, 2010 at 7:35 pm
Someone already mentioned, but this fantastically awesome comic reminded me of a Jorge Luis Borges story called “The library of Babel”, in which all knowledge that could ever be thought of was stored. It was infinite, and its books contained all the possible combinations of words and sentences that are possible using our alphabet (both making sense and not…).
I also read somewhere that there’s a theory in physics that says that for every action ever undertaken by anyone, another infinite ‘realities’ are then created, in which every other possible behavior or event other than the one that happened takes place.
I think this little place of yours gives us a small glimpse of such places! 🙂
Love the comics, read every one of them since i found them on cracked. Keep up the great work!
January 13, 2011 at 7:38 pm
Thank you.
January 17, 2011 at 8:41 am
Any chance of a poster/print of this one being made available ?
I have at least one chum would would read this, laugh, then stop laughing and sit down for a really good think.
E.
January 19, 2011 at 6:36 pm
That IS the Museum of Jurassic Technology, which, improbably, does indeed exist.
January 23, 2011 at 8:14 pm
I’m sorry.. I snuck in the door right behind you… loved the tour
February 21, 2011 at 11:00 pm
Just finished reading the whole archive after this. After this the Maturity Climb is my favorite.
You’re a real wiseass, Roundtree. I’d donate if it weren’t for being unemployed 😦
March 8, 2011 at 6:51 pm
tl;dr
March 8, 2011 at 7:20 pm
Oh fucking original. Piss off Samuel.
March 29, 2011 at 12:02 am
I enjoy your stories/commentary/cartoons. Thank you!
April 18, 2011 at 12:00 am
Man, you make the best stuff I’ve seen on the web in a while. Keep doing it, please.
May 5, 2011 at 2:41 pm
this is fantastic, i stand to aplod your creative insights
May 15, 2011 at 12:30 pm
wow this is amazing, i seriously wish there was a museum like that i would spend my days in there until i was done with every book it contained!!! 🙂 great job awesome story and incredible art 😉
June 18, 2011 at 12:04 pm
I actually think a museum like that would be fairly popular–as long as it was put in a place like NY, LA, or London.
June 18, 2011 at 12:07 pm
Ooh nevermind. I had no idea this was already in LA
June 29, 2011 at 3:35 pm
Strange, in the first panel this looked like a single floor building with a basement, and nowhere near big enough to house all that stuff. Yet, panel 3 shows signs of a floor 2. This building is totally a theoretical tardis. 😀
September 12, 2011 at 5:29 pm
thats what i was going to say! a place that awesome could only exist inside a tardis.
July 11, 2011 at 2:28 pm
I absolutely love all of these comics….I wish I could afford Monstrous Discrepancies….brilliant. Please keep making these!
July 23, 2011 at 1:07 pm
great use of the comic medium
October 17, 2011 at 8:26 pm
I like the address of 221B. Is it the hypothetical neighbor of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson across the street at 222B?
September 16, 2012 at 11:27 pm
HOLY SHIT. That was… my mind is blown.
November 10, 2012 at 8:46 pm
the thing about school uphill that was freaky
June 12, 2013 at 4:40 pm
The book titles in the 8th panel are fantastic. “Our uneventful lunch with Godot” indeed. Brilliant.
September 22, 2013 at 11:56 am
I loved this one. I look forward to seeing more
October 13, 2013 at 8:54 pm
I would go to the museum just to listen to “Imagine a Photograph of a Passing Jet.”
March 16, 2014 at 10:54 pm
Dratedly “clever”!
June 25, 2014 at 6:20 pm
This is one of the most thoughtfully hilarious things I’ve ever read.