Sometimes we see beautiful people. You know, the kind that look good no matter what. The kind that look great just rolling out of bed, that always look their best in pictures. Lucky bastards.
Other times we see people that are really, really beautiful, but just don’t register well in a photograph. You know they’re good looking, but nobody will believe you unless they get to meet them in person.
Then there’s the people that aren’t all that good looking, but look gorgeous in photos. They make great models, and most models are that way, actually. It’s a practical approach to beauty.
We’ve got the people that are sometimes good looking, and others don’t look good at all. Those people just need you to catch them on a good day.
Of course, there’s also the people with “angles”, who look nice or ugly depending on which way you look at them.
There’s circumstantial pretty people, that look just fine as long as they don’t perform a specific action – like smile, for example.
And let us not forget the people that are just plain ugly, no matter what.
Today’s comic is about another type of beauty: the distance beauty. These are people that look really great when you see them from a distance, but as you get closer you realize that they’re not actually all that pretty. Sometimes, they’re simply ugly, even. Growing up in high school with my friends, we used to call these people (in our case, we referred to the girls we were checking out) “traps”.
So in today’s comic, Admiral Ackbar does his job of pointing out what is a trap and what is not, as he always does. Beware.
Good hunting;
O
NOTE: Sorry for the lack of color and sketchy quality of today’s strip – sometimes time is not our friend. Still, I rather enjoy a sketchy comic every now and then.
does O need glasses? or is it just the pixelation distance of the ladies?
heh, this remind me of an old joke/saying.
The lady from behind was: “And don’t let us to temptation” and from the front she was “but rescue us from the evil one.”
@lebox: Ah, you refer to the infamous “Butterface”! Y’know, you has a great body… butt her face…
I think the sketchy look works better for this subject than it would had you fleshed it out! Fantasmic as always O!
living in NYC you get used to walking FAST. whenever you go elsewhere you are basically passing everybody on the street and you run into this situation quite a bit.
Wasn’t there a Quagmire incident like this on Family Guy. Hot little number from behind, then she turned around and was verry butterface?
I remember back when my buddies and I discussed girls in High school….. My worst enemy, and admitted weakness, was the “smellies” They’re the girls that would walk by you and flip their hair, releasing a cloud of invisible gas. When you hit it, the Mango-Watermelon-citrus-conditioner would assault your nose while the Fruity-and Flirty body lotion would entrap your mind…. and if your nose was sensitive enough to pick up the cherry cola lip gloss as she smiled at you, it was all over…. all you could do was hope you snapped out of it before you hit the column you were headed towards….
“Good from afar, but far from good” is the phrase I use. Also aplies to artwork.
How’s the hand O?
People with angles… Can’t help of thinking about the goatse guy :/
“sketchy comic” … Nice one O!
That “distance beauty” is the source of a game me and my friends play. It’s called the “From Here Game”
Basically at any time, one of us will say “From here” and give a brief description of the person we’re referring to. (For example “From here, blue sweater”). Everyone else answers yes or no based on how they look from where they are.
The question of course is referring to “From here, would you sleep with them?”
A lot of the time it just ends with “good call” but other times it ends with a lot of taunting about some of the shit you’ve said yes to. (For example I don’t think anyone in our group will ever say yes to Karate Outfit again….)
I like to call them Monet’s, beautiful from a distance but just messy smudges up close.
O, you avoid the Chans, don’t you?
Then why did you almost PERFECTLY portray one of their “traps”?
(In 4chan speak, “trap” = “transvestite”. For that matter, so does “tarp”. Don’t ask)…
There’s a bit of dialogue in Clueless about that:
Tai: What’s a monet?
Cher: It’s like a painting, see? From far away, it’s OK, but up close, it’s a big old mess.
That movie is soooo girly… ha.
I have no words. that was just EPIC
my friends and I call thi D.D.F. or “Distance Distortion Factor” to explain how ugly girls can look hot when their features are just the right distance away to blend a flawed feature that is extremely uncomplementary or some such…my D.D.F(for looking at other people…, figured I’d nip that one in the bud) is very “low” as I’m quite near sighted, and have never bothered to get glasses. the worst D.D.F. is when you catch yourself having checked out an old lady…or a man who looks like a girl from a distance….poor guy.
Here in Brazil we say a thing about these girls, “De longe encanta, de perto espanta”, something like “from afar shes a delight, up close it scares” but in portuguese it rhymes =)
@John – Oh noes, /b/ found this place!
This better stay the fuck out of /b/. Bad enough to see xkcd posted all around the chans…
love the fact that in the first panel, your creeping up to her, stalking can be the only description – looks like the butterface (bobfod to my friends – body of babe, face of dog) was devine justice
I call these people HFFA’s (Hot From Far Away).
check the trap before you fap !
The very well famous “Tiene buen lejos” in our city
Great strip…
In my high school days we call these “Beethoven”, because in chinese it roughly translates to 背多分 Bei4 Duo1 Fen1, “The Back, more points given”
I think I’d qualify in the, “Other times we see people that are really, really beautiful, but just don’t register well in a photograph. You know they’re good looking, but nobody will believe you unless they get to meet them in person,” category. Although I wouldn’t say “really, really beautiful,” just that I don’t photograph well.
I thought I’d mention another kind of tricky beauty. That is the ones that are hot in group but not so much individually. It’s called “The Cheerleader Effect” on “How I Met Your Mother.” It is explained on this video: http://fliiby.com/file/120930/73gf70bhn5.html
I have been reading your comic for years and have read every strip. I think this is the funniest one I have seen. Bravo!
She’s also a Bakku-shan (Japanese)
Means: A beautiful girl… as long as she’s being viewed from behind.
http://www.cracked.com/article_17251_10-coolest-foreign-words-english-language-needs.html
Always refered to them as 10,6,2′s In other words, SShes a ten from back there a six from a little closer and a 2 when you get near her
hahahaha, that is an awesome strip! keep ‘em coming! your on a roll!
Obviously how they look from a distance and up close has far more to do with appeal than anything you can’t tell by looking, like personality.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LE6cH3TKr-g&feature=PlayList&p=874B4A802F87FAD5&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=55
Good from far, far from good….
Hah, trap. It’s double funny because it looks like a dude in the second to last panel.
Hehehehe, it’s like the Sprite ad “de lejos todas estan buenas”
It strikes me that you may need glasses to correct far sight 
I do 
Please color this, it will look awesome.
Good from far but far from good