The Tell-Tale Beat
by Jeff
Image text: You fancy me mad. Could a madman have outsmarted the greatest electronica/techno artists of our era? Next to fall will be Roderick Usher's house/trance band.
This is a reference to the Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe in which the character in the short story kills and buries a body underneath the floorboards in his house. He is haunted by the sound of a beating heart from under the floorboards until he admits his guilt.
"You fancy me mad" in the image text is a direct reference to Poe's story in which he says "If you still think me mad..."
Daft Punk is as it says in the image text is an "electronica/techno"artist. When the character in the comic buries Daft Punk under his floorboards, all he hears is the typical "Unn-Tss" sound that makes the back-beat for most techno and electronica songs.
In the image text, Roderick Usher is a reference to "The Fall of the House of Usher", another short story by Edgar Allen Poe. And the pun is on the word "fall" where it is used to mean die but is also a reference to the title of the short story "The Fall of the House of Usher".
May 14th, 2010
The Usher reference goes even one word further: “Roderic Usher’s house” band, thus having all the important words of the story title in the title text.
Funny side note: I explained it to a friends some hours ago in about the exact same words
May 14th, 2010
This is also a great reference to “A Softer World”, a webcomic involving old Polaroids and captions like this. Randall links to to it below the comic.
May 14th, 2010
He could have written “techtronica” artist and “trouse” band.
But that would have been a clear case of a”malamanteau”!
May 21st, 2010
house/trance-band gives it another twist I like playing with “house” as in usher vs. “house” as a style of music.
June 1st, 2010
The artwork is reminiscent of Edward Gorey, but with the XKCD stickfigure twist, of course. Gorey often drew dark, Victorian-looking panels.
June 28th, 2010
Now this was an excellent explanation: taught me a lot of references I didn’t know before, and I was an English major.
All your entries should be as complete and accurate as this one!
July 5th, 2010
Where’s the “image text” in the comic? It made a lot more sense with it.
September 24th, 2011
For some reason I can’t see image text on my newly updated Firefox… thanks for this website!
BTW, I know this comic and this commentary are old , but I notice in your explanation, you say Daft Punk is “an “electronica/techno”artist”, whereas it is actually a duo. If you have the time, maybe you can come back and mark that plural.