2011-09-01
Explanation
This comic is a simple graph joke in the style of an XKCD-like chart. The y-axis measures "how likely a person is to give you unsolicited advice about something," while the x-axis measures "how completely he's failed at it." The curve rises exponentially, suggesting that the worse someone has personally failed at something, the more eagerly they will offer you their unsolicited expertise on that very subject.
The joke captures a widely recognized social phenomenon: people who have failed spectacularly at something (dieting, relationships, finances, etc.) often become the most enthusiastic dispensers of advice on that topic. It plays on the irony that personal failure does not diminish confidence in one's ability to counsel others -- if anything, it seems to increase it. The minimalist presentation, with no characters or dialogue, lets the data speak for itself in a deadpan style typical of Weinersmith's graph-based comics.