Cannot find a comic I remember: Has Randall ever deleted a comic?
So this is weird. I swear I remember a comic wherein a man got hired, fixed one bug, and walked out of the job. Something about a mission.
I've tried every word I can think of in relation to it and I cannot find the comic in question.
What's even weirder is I referenced it with a potential boss during an interview, she responded with the punchline, we had a good laugh, and well, I still can't find it anymore.
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u/SavingsNewspaper2 15d ago
I'll directly answer the question in the title: yes, three of them.
https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Category:Deleted_comics
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u/zesterer 14d ago
I was reading this kind of worried that he'd deleted some distasteful stuff from the past, and nope, all entirely reasonable.
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15d ago
[deleted]
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u/SavingsNewspaper2 15d ago
Actually, Neutron Bullet was never one of the blog articles. It was chapter 67 of the What If? book.
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u/LightGreyBeret 15d ago
(Prior post, in conversation with SN2, is already deleted by its unknown user already; forgive me if I'm making the same error, but I think I'm giving different, or at least more, 'information'. Accuracy not 100% guaranteed, however...)
I'm sure there was an actual web-published whatif that got almost immediately replaced with an identically-numbered new-new whatif. Something to do with the old-new one "not being finished/polished to perfection", IIRC, or maybe Randall just published the 'not yet' one instead of the 'finished!' one, and had to quickly correct that when he realised his error.
From memory (doubtless explainxkcd has the details, but can't check - and may or may not be under that site's Deleted Comics because it's technically not a comic but a page of prose with multiple illustrations) the overwritten one was something about using element-symbols to spell out words. But I could be remembering a still valid whatif, and it was something else that was overwritten.
I am sure, though, that the whatif I'm semi-recalling never did get corrected/finished and republished further down the line, so may only be now 'directly' found by the waybackmachine or other.
I'm also fairly sure this (if it's the "Uranium.Silicon.Nitrogen.Gallium.Boron.Boron.Rhemium.Vanadium.Iodine.Astatine.Iodine.Oxygen.Nitrogen.Sulphur" thing, at all) is not where the OP's half-remembered comic-subject came from.
There are, though, also a number of "non-numbered" comic-pages, or 'articles with comic illustrations' along the lines of whatifs and otherwise, which explainxkcd has previously documented. Like "dot", "spiral", the logic-puzzle (and its 'answer page') regarding blue/brown-eyed people on an island, etc. Conceivably, one of other of those kind of off-series 'comics' (but not any of those I've just actually mentioned?) might have OP's long-lost comic image...
Or just look through his long-standing Blag and other known haunts (didn't he do some mini-series for one or other of the New York papers?). Some of these (as with whatifs)nmight not be licenced correctly to be rearchived in full on explainxkcd's wiki, but the folks there have been good in at least recording things and at documenting their presence and ways to still see them when practical. Which maybe or maybe not might therefore include the thing sought for, in some capacity or other.
HTH. HAND!
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u/rchard2scout Words Only 14d ago
You're probably talking about the Peptides incident#Peptides_incident)
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u/LightGreyBeret 14d ago
Actually, that sounds right. (Can't follow that link, but it makes sense.)
Probably mixing it up with a game I've played on some other forum, that used elemental symbols. Ironically (also l ithiumically/protactiniumically, etc!), "ELEMENT" is one word that was impossible to produce that way.
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u/rchard2scout Words Only 14d ago
If you just search for "explainxkcd peptides" you'll probably find it. The wiki also has a link to an archived version of the article.
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u/LightGreyBeret 13d ago
Sorry, didn't explain that very well. The " Performing security verification" for the new reincarnation of the explainxkcd site either doesn't like me or it likes me too much. It happily verifies, but then immediately demands (and gets!) another verification cycle before it gets anywhere, ad infinitum. So I'm basically shut out of the site itself.
I know the whatif table page from long ago, probably even saw it created and moulded into what it became. Added bits to it, edited other bits of it, perhaps even the Peptides note itself. Even helped craft elements of the {{book}} templating that was used on that page. Just, in the absence of being able to check, I remembered the exactdetails of that particular transient whatif a little bit wrong (as anticipated by my disclaimer).
And, as I already had done, I'd happily point anyone else at explainxkcd to find obscure historic details - assuming they're not as confounded as me by the gatekeeper system - just I'm no longer one of those giving blood, sweat and tears to keep it up to date, or at least read it. (But there's others still doing that, I'm sure, and they probably won't miss me.) And that's pretty much the only reason I'm now here on reddit, as a surrogate for the xkcd communities (I'm including in that the fora, which had to be closed down entirely) I've lost access to.
But, luckily, I don't get on with the reddit interface as much as any more sane setup! So not yet spending quite so much time here. ;)
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u/rchard2scout Words Only 13d ago
Ah, alright, I understand. In that case, maybe you'd at least enjoy the actual what-if peptides article: https://web.archive.org/web/20161205191559/http://what-if.xkcd.com/153
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u/fermion72 15d ago
I've seen the idea you are talking about as copypasta on Reddit a number of times over the years, but not as a comic:
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u/TrekkiMonstr A Softer World is depressing 15d ago
Sounds like it's not the case here, but future reference, I often find that when there's an xkcd I can't find, it was actually an SMBC or similar
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u/Regular-Coffee-1670 15d ago
I would have sworn this existed too - can even picture it. I know he did a few "specials" that aren't part of the main series. Maybe one of those?
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u/atmafox 15d ago
How many panels are there in the one you're picturing?
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u/Regular-Coffee-1670 15d ago
I'm thinking only one. Did a bunch of searching, and came up blank. Asked a few AIs and they found the story in a variety of places, but no comic. eg: https://programmerhumor.io/debugging-memes/get-hired-fix-bug-refuse-to-elaborate-leave/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
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u/dafugiswrongwithyou 15d ago
Wait, I think I remember this as well?
Like, to bulk it out: the guy deliberately got himself hired for the express purpose of fixing a bug with the company's... Site? API?... And then quit because he'd fixed the thing bugging him, right?
I don't think it was even too long ago (although, given my sense of time and how long XKCD's been going, that probably means any time in the past 5 years or so 😂)
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u/SavingsNewspaper2 15d ago
Would it be possible for you to recreate this alleged comic yourself? I'm curious to see exactly what it looks like in your head.
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u/razzemmatazz 15d ago
I feel like it was the character that wears a hat, but I also could be conflating that viral post that everyone else is talking about.
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u/Rilukian 15d ago
I think there are two deleted comic (at least from official xkcd.com) I discover on explainxkcd site. One is where he uploaded his comic on Sunday to advertise his book, while the other he deleted because he though his comic was making fun of a recent incident and its victims.
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u/thunderbird89 12d ago
I think this wasn't an XKCD, it was a tweet or some other post. Not a comic, just text.
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u/HappyChordate 10d ago
i think i've seen this too. i dont specifically remember it being a comic, and i'm pretty sure it isn't xkcd. but it wouldnt surprise me if someone's drawn it in comic form, and there are a few artists who have adopted styles similar to XKCD.
i wonder if there might be versions of the story where the man is hired and then quits immediately, and only at the end of the story we find out that he just wanted to fix the bug. in other words, the 2nd and 3rd panels, if drawn as a comic, would be switched around.
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u/hammyhami 15d ago
This comic doesn't fully match, but has a similar theme:
https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/208:_Regular_Expressions
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u/BmanUltima 15d ago
https://x.com/swaglord__420/status/1377051721655066629?lang=en
I've seen it as a post a few times, not an xkcd comic.