Frankenstein Captcha
Frankenstein Captcha
[A captcha design, with a header and four rows of four pictures each below it. The header, in white lettering on a blue background, reads:] To continue, please click All squares containing Frankenstein
[The pictures, all with gray backgrounds, are as follows, from left to right in each row:]
Row 1
Monster: GRRR
Row 2
Row 3
Frankenstein: It's alive!
Girl: Monster!
Row 4
[Caption below the panel]: Oh no.

This comic strip is a play on the meanings (and misunderstanding) of the name "Frankenstein". Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus is an 1818 novel by Mary Shelley about a medical student named Victor Frankenstein who creates an artificial life-form. The man he creates once describes himself as "the Adam of [Frankenstein's] labour" in the book, and strictly speaking is properly known as "Frankenstein's monster " (or perhaps "creation" or "son"), but is often erroneously called "Frankenstein" himself. This has been fertile ground for many, many debates about whether the monster could also properly be called "Frankenstein," either as a family name, an honorific, or simply because it's more recognizable and convenient. Randall has weighed in on the debate himself in a previous comic, 1589: Frankenstein .
The CAPTCHA shown in the comic instructs the user to select all tiles containing Frankenstein. The tiles include both a reanimated corpse resembling Frankenstein's monster and a scientist yelling, "It's alive!” who is clearly intended to be Victor Frankenstein. The problem arises from the contrast between various definitions of the term Frankenstein. Going just off the book's text, the monster has no name, so the correct answer to the CAPTCHA is just the left square of the third row.  However, the character depicted there is clearly Henry Frankenstein from the famous 1931 film adaptation (Victor Frankenstein never said the words "it's alive!" in the book), and likewise the creature depicted is clearly inspired by Boris Karloff 's iconic portrayal in that film and its sequels.  If the images are captured from that film, then all four of them could be said to be "containing (a subset of) Frankenstein (the 1931 film)".
Some CAPTCHAs - especially Google's widely spread reCAPTCHA - nowadays serve a dual purpose: (1) to separate human users from bots by way of intelligent interaction, and (2) to train a neural network, hence the "correct answer" to image recognition CAPTCHAs is not known ahead of time and is merely based on the most commonly-chosen tiles. Thus, a user who knows that "Frankenstein" refers only to the scientist would face this CAPTCHA with dread, uttering "Oh No" as they realize that they must select the tiles containing the monster, and possibly not even be allowed to select the tile containing the actual scientist Victor Frankenstein if they want to pass the CAPTCHA.
Alternatively, this comic strip with its "Oh No" caption could be referencing 1897 , which would imply that someone had actually created a Frankenstein's monster which needs to be located as soon as possible.
Many of the other tiles appear to be pictures of entities that inspire similar pedantry. For example, there is a picture of a turtle (or possibly a tortoise, or a reference to the Voight-Kampff test used in a manner analogous to CAPTCHA), a ship (or possibly a boat), Link (the name given to each of several protagonists that appear across generations and timelines, throughout the Legend of Zelda video games, who many erroneously refer to as Zelda), a pond (or possibly a lake, a puddle, or a mirage ), a squash or pumpkin (often subject to the fruit or vegetable debate), an erupting volcano (with lava, or is it magma?), and the planet Pluto (or is it a dwarf planet?). Other tiles seem to be inspired by images that commonly occur in actual captchas, like the STOP sign or the traffic light. However, at least some of these may also be meant to fall into the category of entities that inspire pedantry, for example: because traffic lights can also be called traffic signals or stoplights; many people thinking that the shape of a stop sign is a hexagon, not an octagon; and the definition of a sandwich (previously discussed as a “random semi-ironic obsession” in 1835 ).
The title text refers to one of the methods used to distinguish a ship from a boat. When making a turn, if the vessel leans towards the inside of the turn circle then it is considered a boat, whereas if the vessel leans away from the turn circle it is considered a ship [1] . Since the vessel generates a wake as it moves, checking whether it is a boat or a ship can be done while it is literally drawing a line on the water (the wake). The phrase "a line drawn in water" is also an idiom for something ephemeral. Ironically, it has persisted for a long time and dates back at least to the early Buddhists. (e.g. AN 3.132 & AN 7.74 ). The distinction between a ship and a boat is also unclear, having changed over time, with no universally accepted rule to distinguish between the two . The title text is also a pun on the common idiom "drawing a line in the sand." The title text could also be referencing the image of a boat or ship that appears as one of the CAPTCHA tiles in the comic, where Randall has drawn a squiggly line often used in crude drawings to represent a waterline.
[A captcha design, with a header and four rows of four pictures each below it. The header, in white lettering on a blue background, reads:] To continue, please click All squares containing Frankenstein
[The pictures, all with gray backgrounds, are as follows, from left to right in each row:]
Row 1
Monster: GRRR
Row 2
Row 3
Frankenstein: It's alive!
Girl: Monster!
Row 4
[Caption below the panel]: Oh no.
