The Onion: Underwhelming Fantasy Novel Starts With Map Of Ohio. “Feeling let down to see a straightforward rendering of the Midwestern state, local reader Kyle Nuebart reported Friday that underwhelming fantasy novel Dayton Rising featured a map of Ohio in its opening pages.” I’m impressed that they went to the trouble of creating a fantasy map of Ohio to illustrate a one-joke article (admittedly, it’s a really good joke).
Previously: The Onion on Fantasy Maps.
The Onion: World’s Cartographers Continue Living Secret Life of Luxury on Idyllic, Never Disclosed 8th Continent. “‘Ah, yes—this is the life,’ said topographical researcher Garrett Farthing, chuckling to himself as he delicately put the finishing touches on yet another map showing their current location to be an empty stretch of the Pacific Ocean while being fed grapes by a trained monkey from an ultra-docile species found only on their lush, temperate, 3.5-million-square-mile landmass. […] No non-cartographer should ever sully this place with their uncultured presence.” You just had to blab, Onion. [WMS]
It’s from 2014, but in the context of dumb viral maps it’s eternally relevant. ClickHole, The Onion’s clickbait parody: We Put 700 Red Dots on a Map.
The dots don’t represent anything in particular, nor is their number and placement indicative of any kind of data. But when you’re looking at them, all spread out on a map of the United States like that—it’s hard not to be a little blown away.
Seven hundred of them. Seven hundred dots. That’s more than 500 dots—well on the way to 1,000. That could represent 700 people, or crime scenes, or cities. Or something that happens in this country every 20 seconds. These dots could potentially be anything—they’re red dots, so they could definitely mean something bad.
Whatever they might be, there’s no unseeing these dots.
The Onion, two years ago: “Unable to picture where in the Grand Realm the destroyed fortress was in relation to the dreaded desert of Quiltar, a fully grown adult man referred to the map on the opening pages of the fantasy novel The Tower Of Astalon Friday to determine the location of the ruined castle of Arnoth, accounts confirmed.” [via]
The Onion’s take on the Apple Maps thing totally steals the punchline from Christopher Rowe’s fantastic 2006 short story, “Another Word for Map Is Faith,” which you can listen to here (previously).
