Comically Missing The Point / Webcomics

The confusion being over the word "population".

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Comically Missing the Point in Webcomics.

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• Fighter of 8-bit Theater does a lot of this, mostly as a side effect of being stupid enough to warp physics. Possibly the best example is when he sees a castle floating in the sky, and declares it to be the invisible sky castle they were looking for.
  Black Mage: Does that look like an invisible sky castle?
  Fighter: Sure, maybe. I've never seen one.
  Black Mage: Can you imagine why?
  (long pause as Fighter attempts thought)
  Fighter: Because they're quite rare?
  Thief: He's not wrong, you know.^note His role in the broader conversation is actually Dumbass Has a Point and/or Too Dumb to Fool because the visible sky castle actually is what they're looking for; the "invisible" part was made up by the arc antagonist to trick Black Mage into dismounting her in mid-air.
• Apocalyptic Horseplay: Occurs twice.
  • The first time:
  Babel: We call him the Husher. A nameless and faceless creature my Order was able to bring into the fold of our Lord... Where his dangerous abilities may finally serve the greater good.
  Angela: Yeah sure, that's brilliant. Except I only asked where the creep went, and I wasn't bloody asking you.
  • The second time:
  Hunger: We didn't always hate the Horsemen, you know. In fact, we used to love them. We were born from them. We looked up to them. And like all children, our first instinct was to become like them. As I understand it, children often grow to resent their parents because of the part of them they see in themselves. Sadly, with the Horsemen, it was the other way around. After that night, they resented the part of them they saw in us. Feared it, even. So they turned us away. They said they were setting us free, but we all knew better. It crushed us. Hatred worst of all. The truth is, we didn't know what to do without them. Fulfilling the prophecy was all we knew. So we went on with the plan. Unfortunately, none of us were strong enough to push humanity over the edge. Once the Horsemen were gone, what was supposed to be the final World War turned into an era of petty feuds and nonviolent ideological conflicts. The bombs never flew. Hatred was humiliated. He kept saying we just weren't ready yet, that we had to evolve, to become stronger, strong enough to finish the job once and for all. But Fever and I knew his thirst for power would never be satisfied. So we all went our separate ways. To our own little corners of the world, far out of the Horsemen's footsteps. And yet, no matter how far we got, or how much we changed... We never forgot. Destiny can be a terrible thing, little man. It's like trying to outrun your own shadow. One way or another, it still catches up to you.
  Oscar: Mate, when I asked "What is wrong with you"... That was a rhetorical question.
• This Basic Instructions strip. For added fun, it seems that both of them are missing the point in different ways.
• Bittersweet Candy Bowl, Functionally, most of the older students to Tess. Especially Jessica and Rachel, since the lot of them bullying her is a bit hypocritical at best.
• Blur the Lines features a stip where Rick Rick is kicked out of a Dungeons & Dragons round because he keeps trying "bluff" his way into the pants of his fellow players; he thinks they kicked him out just because he's gay.

• Boy Meets Boy: Mikhael decides to use humour to lighten the situation when coming out to his new poker group, by putting down his cards and saying "Y'know, it's funny that I got a straight, because I'm not." Long awkward silence ensues, and Mik figures they're squicked and leaves. We cut back to the group, still sitting in amazement:
  "I can't believe he got a straight that early on!"
  "The man's luck is incredible!"
  "Guys ... shut up."
• In Bruno the Bandit Fiona seemed confused about the origin of weiners.
• In this Chuck and Beans strip, a discussion about Hitler goes south fast.
• In Commander Kitty, when the locals turn blue, start pointing at him, and chanting the same thing in perfect unison, Ace assumes he's on the receiving end of a flash mob.
• Cross Time Café: The engineers visit an amusement park's bumper-car ride and start redesigning the ride.
  Engineers: ... lidar or radar ... collision-avoidance ... reactive bumpers ... AI-guidance
  Kathy: Aw, C'mon, guys!!! They're supposed to bump into each other!
• Cyanide and Happiness: In one of their shorts, a man runs over his friend and his reaction is, "OH SHIT! I forgot the ice."

• In this edition of Dangerously Chloe, Abby gets very upset to hear that when Chloe has sex with Teddy (Abby's older brother), she will "'love' him to death." Pandora (like Chloe, also a succubus), explains that it's just an expression: "There's very little 'love' involved."
• This Darths & Droids strip shows just one of many examples of Jim's logic when he's got his mind firmly set on the wrong thing. Jim as Han Solo is desperately trying to think of a way to warm Luke up, and no matter how much the DM emphasises the warmth emanating from the Tauntaun's body, he remains obsessed with using the laser sword to set something on fire. Eventually he decides to they can camp out in the Tauntaun hide overnight... and he can try to set things on fire again in the morning.
• Doghouse Diaries: Used many times. A few notable examples:
  • In Wild Pizza, a man complains that the pizza he's eating is terrible. When his friend points out that it's actually a live bear he's chewing on, he responds:
  "Ok... I need you to stay calm... back away slowly... and bring me some salt."
  • In Always forget something, two friends are just leaving on their trip, and one of them complains of forgetting something. When it's revealed that their trip is skydiving, and he realizes he's forgotten his parachute, his only reaction is to be relieved that he figured out what it was that he was forgetting, because it really would have bugged him if he couldn't remember.

• Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Greg's Aunt Cakey doesn't like kids, but she does buy them some legos to play with. She then glues the legos into a solid brick so they can't be scattered around.
• Joe from Dumbing of Age starts rating Danny's ex-girlfriend who had just broken up with him. He misconstrues Danny's distraught face completely.

• In Freefall:
  • When the robots explain why they joined the mayor's police force.
    Police Robot: We are being trained as a police force to help solve conflicts among the planet's non-human population.
    Mayor's Assistant: Our non-human population consists of one person. Sam. Do we really need an entire police force for one alien squid?
    Police Robot: Sir, I believe if you look past the obvious answer, you'll see one that's even more obvious.
  • Sad thing is, interpretations can go either way.
  • Blunt believes that if car companies truly cared about their customers, they would not sell cars that could be driven.
• In one of the least NSFW (but not least disturbing) pages of Ghastly's Ghastly Comic, Freddy misses the point of Chick Tracts and decides to help the Chick Boy...
  Baka Ecchi Mizu-Boy's Manga Is Too Angry. Freddy Fix It Genki Style!
• Girl Genius:
  • Baron Wulfenbach orders to take Agatha to Castle Wulfenbach and send her back in case she turns out to be useless. His son indicates that "her parents might not like that". Baron replies: "They'll take her back anyway".
  • Or these two Jägers:
    Gorb: Vell, let’s just keel her.
    Othar Tryggvassen: Fiends. Kill her and I’ll tell the Baron.
    Gorb: Vell, mebbe ve keel you, too, shmot guy.
    Minsk: Gorb...
    Gorb: Vat?!
    Minsk: Gorb, dis iz turnink into vun of dose plans... Hyu know – de kind vere ve keel everybody dot notices dot ve’s killin people?
    Gorb: It is?
    Minsk: Uh huh. And how do dose alvays end?
    Gorb: De dirigible iz in flames, everyboddyz dead an’ I’ve lost my hat.
    Minsk: Dot’s right. Und any plan vere you lose your hat iz?
    Gorb: A bad plan?
    Minsk: Right again!
  • Also, when the Baron finds out that the body he just finished regrowing isn't the girl he'd sent Dupree to capture/kill:
    Dupree: I saw—she's dead!
    Baron: You saw what you were supposed to see. You were tricked. She's alive.
    Dupree: Really?!
    Baron: Yes.
    Dupree: But—are you sure?
    Baron: Yes.
    Dupree: Wow. She sure looked dead.
  • Also...
    Tarvek: If we threw in every minion we have, we might take out one of them.
    Gil: That's a terrible plan!
    Minion: Thank you, sir!
    Gil: There's another twenty of them! We don't have enough minions!
    Minion: Er...
  • Hoffmann, who is deeply in love with the woman he's supposed to marry, but is too clueless to realise she feels the same way, asks Agatha if she thinks Larana and his brother Aldin "like" each other. Agatha, who is admittedly slightly distracted, assures him they definitely do and is genuinely baffled that this doesn't make him feel better — does he want to marry someone his brother dislikes?
• In Greg, Ted misses the point of Greg's biting sarcasm, leaving Greg speechless in frustration.
• Black from Grey is... does this from time to time, mainly because he has trouble understanding metaphors and takes everything literally. For example, when White says that he's pondering the strength of the human heart, Black assumes he's talking about people's actual hearts and tells him that mending a few cuts doesn't make him a doctor.
• The Science Fair arc of Gunnerkrigg Court features two layers of this. Kat's peers (and most of her teachers) focus on the anti-gravity chamber that she invented, completely ignoring the protein crystal growth experiment that was Kat's entire reason for inventing said gravity chamber. And Kat fails to understand why anyone would be more interested in anti-gravity than protein crystals.
• In this panel of Homestuck, Jade gives Dave an item that will make his sword able to injure the main Big Bad. The item is a cue ball, but Dave mistakes it for an egg at first. After Jade points out that the item is a cue ball, Dave asks:
  Dave: lord english has some sort of severe egg allergy that we are hoping to exploit?
• In Knights of Buena Vista, Bill proposes to Mary, and she mistakes it for his Player Character proposing to hers. Then Bill remembers to show the ring.

• Maximumble: In "Werewolf", a vampire overhears a werewolf mocking vampires. The vampire is just confused as to why the werewolf keeps saying the word "neck". ^note None of the characters have necks.
• Misfile: When Ash is having a worse day than usual due to having to go to a gynecologist (which is only a thing because he got hit with a Gender Bender paired with a Cosmic Retcon), Rumisiel, the angel who caused the original problem, walks in. Ash immediately sucker punches him in the gut.
  Emily: I think I understand the reasoning behind that, but was it really the right thing to do?
  Ash: [thinks about it] No. You're right. I should have kicked him in the nads.
• Mountain Time:
  • Two guys being held captive on an island. Their cunning escape plan involves using their boat to kill their captor so they can float home on his corpse.
  • A man is forced to open a tin can at gunpoint. That's not why he thinks his attacker is weird, though.

• My Mamma is In — Burned is Out!: One of the science lovers supports the use of "Burned" because his posts keep being called coal and coal burns, so it must be good. However, in the "Gem/Coal" rating system, the latter is considered negative.
• In Nip and Tuck, when Nip misses the point, he seriously misses the point.
  Mugger: Hey, magical genie here — offering the choice of two wishes! [holds knife close to traveler's face] "I wish I wasn't bleeding through the neck" or "I wish I had my money." Take your time.
  Traveler: [excitedly] I wish for true love!
  Mugger: I don't think you understand.
  Traveler: No! Wait! I wish I could fly!
• The Order of the Stick:
  • Miko is responsible for the quote: "The term is 'smite evil', not 'bump uglies'."
  • Also, Vaarsuvius.
    Vaarsuvius: As the size of the explosion increases, the number of social situations it is incapable of solving approaches zero.
    Blackwing: Whisper whisper whisper whisper whisper.
    Vaarsuvius: ...And That Would Be Wrong.
  • When Haley and her rival were forced to go on thieves's guild missions, Haley would remove the pickles from her sandwiches. Her rival assumed that she was PHYSICALLY WEAK to them, and later attacks Haley by pelting her with pickles. It helps that said rival is a complete and total idiot.
  • This dialogue between Elan and Tarquin after the latter just gave him a flying carpet
    Tarquin: At any rate, I'm happy to put at your disposal any or all resources of this kingdom.
    Elan: (looking at carpet) How do you control it?
    Tarquin: Fear and intimidation, mostly, though a little torture here and there helps.
    Elan: (Horrified look)
    Tarquin: Or did you mean the carpet? Just pull on one of the tassels.
• There's a good one in Pacificators. The platoon needed to come up with a way to lure Rendo away from his comrades.
  Cinna: (when discussing who would be the best candidate for being The Bait) Hey, what about Ex-Boss [Qamra]?
  Qamra: Like he’d interested in some one-eyed woman.
  Cinna: That’s right, you’re too old.
• Pixie and Brutus: A large part of Pixie's character is her innocence making her misunderstand some things the rougher Brutus says.
  • Brutus' implied threat against Randall the raccoon goes straight over her head as she gets sidetracked by the fact that Brutus isn't striped.
  • She completely misses the point of Brutus' training, attempting to make friends with the "mean critter" target (a teddy bear) and protesting Brutus' instructions to bite because biting would make him not want to be friends.
• Pokémon-X does this when Brendan describes May to Professor Birch, saying that she's 5'4", 100 lbs, brown hair, and then mumbles "nice... firm... breasts..." while drooling (it's a long story, okay?). Professor Birch looks shocked. After Brendan leaves, Birch gets excited... because he thinks May is cooking chicken breasts for dinner.
• Practice Makes Perfect:
  • Jess asks Addy if he feels comfortable about being treated by a surgeon who consulted YouTube videos for instructions. Addy says that depends how many views the video has.
  • Jess can also fall victim to this. She tells Addy that she is into classical music and then goes to the music store to see if Mozart has any new albums available.
• In Quarter Life Crisis #6, Ben is lying naked in bed with his girlfriend Lisa when Jodie walks in to ask him how to beat a part in a video game. He answers her and she walks back out. Ben doesn't get why Lisa is bewildered.
  Lisa: Did... did your sexy roommate just walk in on us to ask for advice about a videogame?
  Ben: Well I've beaten it before.
• Questionable Content:
  • When Dora first sees a shrink, she complains to Faye that they spent the whole session on small talk and never got round to actually discussing her problems. They actually spent it talking about her relationship with her brother, which is one of her issues.
  • In this strip, Clinton is explaining to Claire that their mother is having sex with a younger man—and he then comments that he found this out because he was in a bar when it caught fire and burned down, and he needed a place to stay, so he went to their mother's house in the middle of the night. Claire quite reasonably points out his skewed priorities: He was in a fire, and what he wants to tell her is that their mother is getting laid?!
  • When a random AI wanders into Union Robotics and starts talking to Faye as if she were his therapist, despite her repeatedly saying she's not one, she instead tries telling him that she charges $1500 per minute. He protests that nobody's going to pay that, missing that this is exactly what she wants to happen.
• Taisei from Sakana does this rather often.
• In Rascals, Yuriko when she brings up Nick dumping Mitzu and again whenever she invites Kia, another of Nick's ex-girlfriends, over to the house late at night.

• From Schlock Mercenary, in Book 14, Part I:
  Petey: You want to know what ulterior motive I have for offering your captain and his company a comfortable retirement.
  Schlock: Yes! You're sneaky that way! Something big is up, and you're trying to manipulate us.
  Petey: Fine. You won't like the answer, but here it is: I am trying to take a band of career sociopaths out of circulation.
  [beat]
  [Schlock draws his plasgun]
  Schlock: I'm in. Tell me who to shoot.
  Petey: Apparently I'm sneakier than either of us thought.
  • Also
  Elf: What are you keeping from me! Back-doors sabotage?
  Para: What? No. I just don't like being micro-managed.
  Elf: I can't help it! You're a very small person!
  Para: That's not what that word means!
• This Schworld History comic has a disturbing example.
• The "Cuckolded Husband" storyline in Sexy Losers sees a man repeatedly walk in on his wife having sex with his best friend. He immediately believes their implausible excuse and innocently runs with it until they regret saying anything.
• In Silenziosa, when Alissabetta is dismayed at being presented with an array of tools for assassination rather than dressmaking, King Charles talks up the exquisite high quality of the implements, not to mention their presentation box.
• In Slice of Life, After Twilight Sparkle explains to Spike (a baby green dragon) that you're supposed to dress as something you're not on Nightmare Night, he dresses up as a red dragon.
• Sluggy Freelance in this strip:
  Parody villain: You better hurry. There's a vampire there with orders to drop your friends into a vat of boiling oil at midnight exactly!
  Sam: My God! They'll drown!
• Something*Positive: Bian at her new job.
  "It's Pantsless Tuesday in the boss's office."
  "That's insane! It's Monday."
  • Jason is shocked when Aubrey mentions she saw her favourite TV comedian die mid-act when she was little, and asks if it affected her in any way. "Of course it did! I've been trying to figure out what that punchline was going to be for about twenty-five years now."
• Stand Still, Stay Silent: In the prologue, Gøran is showing Aksel a series of three stylized figures representing the at-risk populations for the Rash. He correctly identifies young children and elders, but gets stumped by the the third and guesses "fat people". It's very obviously a pregnant woman.
• After Rod of Stick in the Mud asks why monsters from hell are drinking beer with him while humans wrecked his bar, he completely misses the point of Lamias explanation.
  Lamia: There are dicks on either side. We have beasts down there that would dye their sweaters with the blood of children.
  Rod: Seriously? Sounds mighty impractical. That stuff clots like a motherfucker.
• Sticky Dilly Buns: Dillon fishes for compliments, but Ruby refuses the bait:
  Dillon: Here's where you say stuff like "Of course you deserve him, Dillon! You're a nice, handsome guy!"
  Ruby: I don't like to lie.
  Dillon: You don't find me handsome?
• In Super Brothers, Bowser thinks the partiers are there to celebrate him, and when Peach calls him out on his selfishness being why he's so lonely, he thinks she's so kind and thoughtful he has to have her to himself and kidnaps her.
• Unwinder's Tall Comics: Director Nathan Blaine makes a sequel to Citizen Kane, named K2: The Death of Kane. There's enough references to the original film's plot and dialogue to prove that Blaine's a big fan of the original Kane... yet somehow he still manages to turn his sequel into a generic action movie with a lot of explosions.
  Eli Parker: Anyhow, one of the funny results of this is that Nathan Blaine has clearly, CLEARLY seen Citizen Kane, and he is clearly trying to get everything right, and throw in a lot of references to Kane 1, but he's still completely missing the point.
  He's a pretty crazy director.
• In Team Fortress 2's comic storyline "Meet the Director", the group obtains a picture of Heavy sleeping, with his favourite gun in a tiny bed beside his bed.
  "That's pretty embarrassing."
  "Yes. I must buy Sasha better bed."
• Virtual Shackles: Upon being told of the horrific things done by a Dungeons & Dragons player, Jack's response is shock - at the fact that people still play it.
• In Voodoo Walrus Grymm is pretty bad about this. But it could just be him being difficult on purpose.
  Creepnight: And remember, this time we run a background check. We don't want another basketcase in our lives.
  Grymm: "I like picnics."
• In Welcome to the pharmacy!, one client comes in with his head having burst into a mutated, bug-like monstrosity mere minutes before the pharmacy opened - and complains about how his headache so bad, he feels like his head is going to explode.
• The Whiteboard: When Sandy is railing against "upgrades" done to her car by Doc (which include offensive weaponry) in the September 19, 2012 strip, he insists on pointing out the difference between rockets and missiles (unguided versus guided), a launcher for the latter being what mounted on her car.
• In this comic of xkcd, the Alt Text has the character reject the squirrel's advice. Not because the squirrel is obviously a hallucination, but because "What do squirrels know about mental health?"
  • xkcd also provides another example, that, coincidentally, also focuses on squirrels. Cueball is told that there is the equivalent of one squirrel's worth of dark matter in the Earth, and asks if there's any way to work out which squirrel it is.
  • Another example:
  Megan: Can anyone tell me what's wrong with this picture?
  Cueball: The white balance, for one.
  Danish: Focus is a bit too close.
  Black Hat Guy: The chromatic aberration suggests you bought your camera because it had "the most megapixels".
  Megan: THE CAR IS ON FIRE!
  (The Alt Text then has the three gleefully suggest setting Megan's replacement car on fire to give her a better shot.)

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