Dataset Viewer
number
stringlengths 1
4
| date
stringlengths 11
176
| title
stringlengths 1
49
| before
stringclasses 47
values | image
imagewidth (px) 106
2.53k
| titletext
stringlengths 0
820
⌀ | transcript
stringlengths 0
8.93k
⌀ | explanation
stringlengths 0
16.5k
⌀ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
3
|
September 30, 2005
|
Island (sketch)
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20070927001941/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=40#:~:text=8%3A35%20pm-,Island,-I%20draw%20these Original title</span>]: '''Island'''</big></big>
|
Hello, island<br><br><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20070927001941/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=40#:~:text=8%3A35%20pm-,Island,-I%20draw%20these Original caption</span>]: I draw these a lot.
|
:[A green island surrounded by blue water]
|
This was the third comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 4: Landscape (sketch), and the next one was 2: Petit Trees (sketch). It was among the :Category:First day on LiveJournal|first thirteen comics posted to LiveJournal within 12 minutes on September 30, 2005, on the first day of the xkcd LiveJournal account.
This comic does not present a particular point, it's just a picture drawn by Randall Munroe|Randall. The title text may be a reference to the classical "Hello, World!" program|"Hello, world!" program, traditionally the first program a developer runs when learning a new programming language.
|
|
5
|
January 1, 2006
|
Blown apart
| null |
Blown into prime factors
|
:[A black number 70 sees a red package with the appearance of a Christmas present. This small panel is partly overlaid on the next larger panel, which is shifted down.]
:'''70'''
:70: hey, a package!
:[The package explodes in a cloud of brown smoke. This panel is both behind the first in the top left corner, and below the last panel, which has been laid on top of that corner.]
:'''BOOM'''
:[There are a red 7, a green 5, and a blue 2 lying near a scorched mark on the floor.]
:'''<font color
|
This comic is a mathematical and technical joke involving prime numbers and primary colors. In the comic, a black-colored ''70'' sees a package, but it turns out to be a letter bomb that explodes when opened. The result is pieces of the number scattered about: a red-colored ''7'', a green-colored ''5'', and a blue-colored ''2''.
The title text explains the logic for splitting 70 into 7, 5, and 2; as with many of the earlier comics, the title text explains the joke rather than adding to it. 7*5*2 is a prime factorization of the number 70. Prime number|Prime numbers are numbers that cannot be divided by any number other than itself and 1. Factors of a number are numbers that can be multiplied together to produce that number (e.g., 2×5×7
|
|
6
|
September 30, 2005
|
Irony
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20070927001941/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=40#:~:text=8%3A42%20pm-,Irony,-Too%20much%20perspective Original title</span>]: '''Irony'''</big></big>
|
It's commonly known that too much perspective can be a downer.<br><br><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20070927001941/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=40#:~:text=8%3A42%20pm-,Irony,-Too%20much%20perspective Original caption</span>]: Too much perspective can do that.
|
:[A panel only with text. The last text is written below a line in all capital letters.]
:When self-reference, irony, and meta-humor go too far
:A CAUTIONARY TALE
:[Cueball talks to his Cueball-like friend.]
:Cueball: This statement wouldn't be funny if not for irony!
:[Cueball laughs at his own joke in front of his friend.]
:Cueball: ha ha
:Friend: ha ha, I guess.
:[Again a panel only with text.]
:20,000 years later...
:[A desolate brown badlands landscape with an imposing red sun in the dark blue sky.]
|
This was the ninth comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 8: Red Spiders, and the next one was 9: Serenity is coming out tomorrow. It was among the :Category:First day on LiveJournal|first thirteen comics posted to LiveJournal within 12 minutes on September 30, 2005, on the first day of the xkcd LiveJournal account.
Cueball makes a true statement, that his statement is not very funny. However, because he invoked irony and thus makes it self-referential, the sentence is now funny! The other guy Cueball, producing a fake laugh, is probably not so sure that it is actually funny.
Now going meta: In 20,000 years, there might be no more humans on earth to find the irony funny anymore. How ''ironic''!
Alternatively, the barren landscape would have occurred regardless of whether someone made the joke, so ironically, the cautionary tale is completely meaningless, although still funny. Self-references would be used again in 33: Self-reference and :Category:Self-reference|many more comics.
The title text is a reference to the visit of Spın̈al Tap to the grave of Elvis Presley. In addition, the perspective theme also invokes the Total Perspective Vortex in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. This is located on the desolate planet Frogstar B, possibly looking not unlike the final image in the comic.
|
|
8
|
September 30, 2005
|
Red Spiders
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20070927001941/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=40#:~:text=8%3A41%20pm-,Spiders,-They%27re%20not%20spiders Original title</span>]: '''Spiders'''</big></big>
|
They are six-legged spiders<br><br><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20070927001941/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=40#:~:text=8%3A41%20pm-,Spiders,-They%27re%20not%20spiders Original caption</span>]: They're not spiders; they have six legs!
|
:[Many six-legged red spiders standing on and hanging from cuboids. The cuboids hang in the air with no visible means of support. Some of the spiders have made a bridge out of themselves.]
|
This was the eighth comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 13: Canyon, and the next one was 6: Irony. It was among the :Category:First day on LiveJournal|first thirteen comics posted to LiveJournal within 12 minutes on September 30, 2005, on the first day of the xkcd LiveJournal account.
This comic is the first in an arc of comics, spaced out over 3 years (so far), in which Red Spiders are seen attacking humans. Its objective is not to be funny, philosophical, or scientifically interesting; it just tells a story, in a Questionable Content-esque way. Interestingly, the red spiders actually more closely resemble opiliones, the order of arachnids that includes the Pholcidae|Daddy Longlegs, and which are actually more closely related to mites than to spiders.
The title text and the original caption note that the spiders in this comic have six legs, while most spiders have eight legs each.
The full series of :Category:Red Spiders|Red Spiders comics:
*8: Red Spiders, this one
*43: Red Spiders 2, in which the spiders begin building.
*47: Counter-Red Spiders, in which the humans begin a counter-offensive.
*126: Red Spiders Cometh, in which the spiders attack a city.
*427: Bad Timing, in which, in a style more typical to xkcd, the spiders attack a couple in the middle of a serious relationship discussion in a hot-air balloon.
*442: xkcd Loves the Discovery Channel, in which it appears briefly in the 14th panel crawling over a cube
|
|
10
|
September 30, 2005
|
Pi Equals
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20070927001941/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=40#:~:text=8%3A44%20pm-,Pi%20equals,-(4%20Comments Original title</span>]: '''Pi equals'''</big></big>
|
My most famous drawing, and one of the first I did for the site
|
:[A huge π to the left, then a large equal-to sign, and then five rows of text.]
:<big><big><big>π</big></big></big>
|
This was the eleventh comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 9: Serenity is coming out tomorrow, and the next one was 14: Copyright. It was among the :Category:First day on LiveJournal|first thirteen comics posted to LiveJournal within 12 minutes on September 30, 2005, on the first day of the xkcd LiveJournal account.
There are two possible references here. One is from the book ''Contact (novel)|Contact'' by Carl Sagan, where the existence of God was shown in the last chapter to be encoded in the digits of pi. The other is an old joke of a Fortune cookie|fortune cookie with a fortune that reads, "Help! I'm trapped in a fortune cookie factory!" Similar jokes are often repeated for any mass-manufactured personalized item, often implying that the worker who made the item is working in a sweatshop somewhere or is literally trapped inside a factory and calling for help via the items they produce. This joke is also referenced in 327: Exploits of a Mom's title text, where Mrs. Roberts' Help I'm trapped in a driver's license factory Elaine Roberts|daughter's name is "Help I'm trapped in a driver's license factory." The most literal interpretation of the joke would be that some being who helped to create the universe in a "universe factory" snuck a message into the digits of pi, asking for help to get out. Mathematical concepts being manufactured in a factory is the main mental image here. One can't help but wonder if the [http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/TimeBandits.jpg primordial beings who labored on the universe] to produce things like the gravitational constant and pi have a labor union. Judging by the fact that they're calling for help, it seems they don't.
Since pi is irrational (it has an infinite, non-repeating decimal representation), if each number pair were assigned a letter from the alphabet, or if it was converted to base-26, ASCII, or some other encoding, the entire works of Shakespeare, as well as any other expressible piece of information, including the message in this comic, could presumably be found. It is not really ''known'' that pi really has normal number|this property, but the absence of this property would in itself be an extraordinary coincidence. However, the probability of finding any given string of numbers within a calculable range of digits of pi [http://www.angio.net/pi/whynotpi.html diminishes rapidly as the string length increases].
In the novel Contact (novel)|Contact by Carl Sagan, he includes a "[https://web.archive.org/web/20180801055937/http://goddoesnt.blogspot.com:80/2013/10/pi-and-signature-of-god-from-carl.html Signature of God]." In brief, the signature consists of a very long string of 1s and 0s far out (after some 10^20 seemingly random numbers) in the base-11 expansion of pi that when arranged in a square of a specific size yields a clear drawing of a circle with a diameter of several hundred digits. The existence of this pattern was hinted to the protagonist by a member of an advanced alien civilization as being encoded in physics by an even more advanced civilization with the ability to create universes. Interestingly enough, this could also work for pictures: if you assign a set of nine numbers to equal an RGB hexadecimal color value, eventually you will find the Mona Lisa.
In the book ''xkcd: volume 0'', this comic has a red text at the bottom of the page: <span style
|
|
11
|
September 30, 2005
|
Barrel - Part 2
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20070927001941/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=40#:~:text=8%3A46%20pm-,Barrel%20%2D%20Part%202,-The%20story%20continues Original title</span>]: '''Barrel - Part 2'''</big></big>
|
Awww.<br><br><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20070927001941/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=40#:~:text=8%3A46%20pm-,Barrel%20%2D%20Part%202,-The%20story%20continues Original caption</span>]: The [http://www.livejournal.com/users/xkcd_drawings/1388.html story] continues.
|
:[A boy sits in a barrel which is floating in an ocean.]
:Boy: none of the places i floated had mommies.
|
This was the thirteenth comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 14: Copyright, and the next one was 15: Just Alerting You. It was among the :Category:First day on LiveJournal|first thirteen comics posted to LiveJournal within 12 minutes on September 30, 2005, on the first day of the xkcd LiveJournal account.
As in the previous comic in the :Category:The Boy and his Barrel|The Boy and his Barrel series, the boy is floating in the ocean inside a barrel. The previous comic made a point about the uncertainty of life; here, Barrel Boy's lament at not finding a mother is pure sentimentality, as accentuated by the title text. According to Freud, the first stage of psycho-sexual development is the Oral Stage, which relates to a baby's relationship with its mother. The realization that 'mommy' cannot be found is the first point at which a person learns to stop trusting the world and realizes that the world is not always comforting and safe.
This is the third in a six-part series of comics whose parts were randomly published during the first several dozen strips. The series features Barrel Boy, a character that is different from what would quickly become the xkcd stick figure style. The full series can be found :Category:The Boy and his Barrel|here. After Randall released the full [http://liveweb.archive.org/web/20070207052159/http://www.xkcd.com/barrel.html The Boy and his Barrel] story on the site, it became clear that the original comic 20: Ferret was also part of the series. The comics are listed in the order chosen by Randall:
* 1: Barrel - Part 1
* 20: Ferret
* 11: Barrel - Part 2
* 22: Barrel - Part 3
* 25: Barrel - Part 4
* 31: Barrel - Part 5
|
|
12
|
January 1, 2006
|
Poisson
| null |
Poisson distributions have no value over negative numbers
|
:[Cueball is talking to Black Hat. Cueball has his mouth wide open and has both of his arms up.]
:Cueball: I'm a poisson distribution!
:[Same scene, except Cueball has only one arm up.]
:Cueball: Still a Poisson distribution!
:Black Hat: what the hell, man. Why do you keep saying that?
:[Cueball's face is gone, and he is not holding any arms up.]
:Cueball: Because I'm totally a poisson distribution.
:Black Hat: I'm less than zero.
:[Cueball is gone. Black Hat is now whistling.]
|
Cueball expresses himself as a Poisson distribution, which shows the probability of a given number of events occurring in a fixed interval of time or space. The X axis typically represents the "number of events" while the Y axis is a decimal representing the probability (e.g., 0.5 for 50% probability) a given number of events will occur in that fixed interval of time or space. It is commonly represented by a bar graph or a scatter graph (sometimes with a line connection to show a trend, even though there is no actual value for non-integers).
What's important to note for this comic is that this distribution only has data points on non-negative integers and is not continuous through decimal numbers or (as the image text tells us) negative numbers because events can't occur 0.3 of a time, or −2 times. After implying that the concept of a person being a mathematical distribution is irrational, Black Hat suggests he is "less than zero". Since the Poisson distribution doesn't exist or has no value at negative values, Cueball no longer exists to Black Hat and thus either leaves or disappears magically. Cueball repeating his claim may also be a reference to the fact that the Poisson point process is memoryless. Randall Munroe|Randall was still experimenting with character design, as Cueball has a face in the first two frames.
In the title text, as in some other early comics, Randall Munroe|Randall explains the joke rather than adding to it.
|
|
13
|
September 30, 2005
|
Canyon
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20070927001941/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=40#:~:text=8%3A41%20pm-,Canyon,-I%27m%20not%20sure Original title</span>]: '''Canyon'''</big></big>
|
They're standing at the lip of the canyon, which isn't clear at all.<br><br><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20070927001941/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=40#:~:text=8%3A41%20pm-,Canyon,-I%27m%20not%20sure Original caption</span>]: I'm not sure where they are, but they should be more excited! I would be.
|
:[Two guys, both Cueball-like, are standing at a cliff's edge.]
:Friend: What time is it?
:[Cueball looks at his watch in silence.]
:[Cueball looks up.]
:Cueball: Now.
:[The full scene is shown: the two men (barely visible) are standing at the lip of a huge canyon in a rocky, barren landscape. A pock-marked moon and a ringed planet are visible in the burgundy-colored sky.]
:[The two guys are again seen standing at what is now known to be the lip of the canyon.]
:Friend: That's a pretty boring answer.
:[Same scene as before.]
:Cueball: Is not.
:[Same scene.]
:Cueball: It's the least boring answer imaginable.
|
This was the seventh comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 24: Godel, Escher, Kurt Halsey, and the next one was 8: Red spiders. It was among the :Category:First day on LiveJournal|first thirteen comics posted to LiveJournal within 12 minutes on September 30, 2005, on the first day of the xkcd LiveJournal account.
Cueball and his friend (who also looks like Cueball) are having a discussion. After the friend asks Cueball what the time is, Cueball simply states that it is "now." Then there is a beat panel showing the two standing at the lip of a great canyon drawn in detail and color. The friend claims that "now" is a boring answer, since it's a tautology, a functionally useless answer, and a bad joke all at the same time. Cueball, however, asserts that "now" is the least boring answer he could give. It's typical for humans to focus on mundane concerns, like a meeting they might be late for or a bus they have to catch, and take their familiar environment for granted, no matter how fabulous it might have been at first sight.
The title text explains that they stand on the lip of the canyon, which may not be clear if you do not look very carefully at the color drawing. There are two tiny stick figures at the edge of the canyon, near the center of the panel. On the other six panels, there is just a ragged line, which thus obviously is this lip of the canyon.
|
|
14
|
September 30, 2005
|
Copyright
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20070927001941/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=40#:~:text=8%3A45%20pm-,Copyright%20Law,-I%20posted%20this Original title</span>]: '''Copyright Law'''</big></big>
|
After reading Slashdot and BoingBoing, sometimes I have to go outside.<br><br><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20070927001941/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=40#:~:text=8%3A45%20pm-,Copyright%20Law,-I%20posted%20this Original caption</span>]: I posted this to a Slashdot thread about copyrights, and without any moderation, over 600 people clicked on it.
|
:[A colored drawing of a hilly, grassy landscape. Cueball is leaning against a tree.]
:Cueball: Sometimes I just can't get outraged over copyright law
|
This was the twelfth comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous was 10: Pi Equals, and the next one was 11: Barrel - Part 2. It was among the :Category:First day on LiveJournal|first thirteen comics posted to LiveJournal within 12 minutes on September 30, 2005, on the first day of the xkcd LiveJournal account.
For Cueball, following the copyright wars can be tiring and irritating, but faced with the beauty of nature, its importance fades away. Copyright is a monopoly granted by governments to artists or corporations to control the distribution of their creative works. Before the digital age, it allowed authors and publishers an opportunity to profit from their work without fear of someone making copies and selling them for their gain. In the digital age, when the cost and difficulty of copying has been reduced to near zero, it hasn't worked so well, especially for publishers of music and video. Via the idea of digital copyright, industry trade organizations like the RIAA and MPAA fought to preserve their old business models, lobbying for new laws to protect their income streams in an age where anyone can copy an MP3 file or a DVD quickly and cheaply.
This has involved ordering web sites to take down "infringing" material (and many times material that wasn't infringing), media campaigns comparing file copiers to folks who commit murder on the high seas, and suing artists and writers who have used samples of music or movies in their own work. The RIAA has claimed that rampant illegal copying hurts the artists whose work is copied, as it cuts into the artists' royalty payments; many artists, on the other hand, complain that the RIAA's accounting practices have denied them their fair royalties for decades anyway, and that increased copying leads to increased fans and money through direct sales and is actually better for them than the RIAA. It's a vicious war. An early casualty in the copyright wars was Napster; a later casualty was the concept of DRM (Digital Rights Management) on recorded music and/or elsewhere. The wars have been going on since the early 1990s and essentially ended with the advent of streaming service royalties (Apple Music, Pandora, etc.).
In the title text, [https://slashdot.com Slashdot] and [https://boingboing.net Boing Boing] are two news aggregation websites that cover (among other things) the copyright wars in detail, usually biased against the RIAA, MPAA, and similar organizations.
|
|
15
|
October 2, 2005
|
Just Alerting You
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20070927001941/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=40#:~:text=Just%20Alerting%20You%20(Monday%27s%20drawing) Original title</span>]: '''Just Alerting You (Monday's drawing)'''</big></big>
|
Just thought you should know<br><br><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20070927001941/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=40#:~:text=Just%20Alerting%20You%20(Monday%27s%20drawing) Original caption</span>]: I bet she's cool. I mean, she has a dinosaur!<br>I'm gonna update this MWF for a while and see how that works.
|
:[A man is standing on the back of a green dinosaur and holding reins to the dinosaur's head.]
:Man: Before you talk to me, I should warn you: I am kind of strange
|
This was the fourteenth comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 11: Barrel - Part 2, and the next one was 16: Monty Python -- Enough. It was the first comic posted to LiveJournal after the :Category:First day on LiveJournal|first thirteen xkcd comics were released.
In this comic, a man is riding a Brontosaurus (or what would :Category:Apatosaurus|later be referred to as an Apatosaurus). The humor lies in the fact that the man feels the need to highlight their peculiarity, despite the obvious oddity of riding an extinct and dangerous creature. Megan would later ride an Apatosaurus in 650: Nowhere. This dinosaur genus is also mentioned in 460: Paleontology and 636: Brontosaurus. This was the first comic with dinosaurs, but since then, there have been numerous :Category:Dinosaurs|comics about them on xkcd.
The title text further emphasizes this, while the original caption signifies that Randall Munroe|Randall would start posting a new comic every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Ironically enough, this comic was posted on a Sunday, a few minutes before Monday: see the #Trivia|trivia section. From now, he also began putting the date into most, but not all, comic titles on LiveJournal until he started to use [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com] instead.
|
|
16
|
October 4, 2005
|
Monty Python -- Enough
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20070927001941/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=40#:~:text=Support%20Surreal%20Humor Original title</span>]: '''Support Surreal Humor'''</big></big>
|
I went to a dinner where there was a full 10 minutes of Holy Grail quotes exchanged, with no context, in lieu of conversation. It depressed me badly.<br><br><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20070927001941/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=40#:~:text=Support%20Surreal%20Humor Original caption</span>]: Just sayin'. It's been 30 years now.
|
:[The comic is drawn on blue-ruled graph paper.]
:[A Cueball with raised hands talks to two other Cueball-like characters and one Megan.]
:Cueball: We are the Knights who say... Ni!!
:Cueballs and Megan: hahaha
:[There is only text in the second panel]
:Does anyone else find it funny that decades later, people are still quoting --word-for-word-- a group loved for their mastery of shock, the unexpected, and defiance of convention?
:[Two Cueballs are looking at a hairy guy.]
:Hairy guy: We are the Knights who... oh, God, I'm so sorry
:[Close up of hairy guy.]
:Hairy guy: So sorry, the car just came too fast and
:[Words crumpled inside the panel, there's barely enough space for the hairy guy to the right and below the text. The last two words need to be to the right of him.]
:Hairy guy: She was right there and I saw her and then it was a blur and so much I ran to help didn't know what she wasn't moving I'm so sorry
:Hairy guy: so sorry
:[The two Cueballs are looking again at the hairy guy.]
:Hairy guy: Anyway, yeah, Knights who say "Ni."
:[The last panel is also almost only text. The text is centered. Below is a drawing that looks a flat infinity sign with two small lines at the center.]
:H<u>on</u>or
:Monty Python:
:promote surreal humor.
|
This was the fifteenth comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 15: Just Alerting You, and the next one was 17: What If.
This comic refers to the classic British sketch comedy group Monty Python, active primarily during the 1970s and early 1980s but also Monty Python Live (Mostly)|partly reunified in 2014, whose humor style was frequently based on surreal jokes that subverted sense and logic. Their sketches are so popular that, as noted in the comic, many fans can repeat the dialog word-for-word, and often do. This comic points out the inherent irony of repeating a surrealist sketch, as surrealist humor primarily depends on presenting something the audience does not expect. By repeating the sketch verbatim among those who have already seen it, the listeners know and expect the punchlines and jokes. This is akin to a common ironic concept of a teenager who wants to rebel against conformity by doing all the things their friends are also doing.
The sketch in question here is the "Knights who say Ni" sketch from the film ''Monty Python and the Holy Grail'', about a group of knights who protect certain sacred words, including the word "Ni" (pronounced like the word "knee," but shortened and with more staccato). The comic suggests that readers continue in the surreal traditions of Monty Python, and provides an example: The character in panels 3-6 interrupts his retelling of the sketch with what appears to be a traumatic recalling of the time he saw someone run a woman over with their car and kill her, before returning to the sketch. The surreal humor is that the character dismisses the significant and serious comment he has just made by returning to the sketch as if nothing happened.
The title text and the original caption refer to how fans of Monty Python can go for lengthy periods of time simply quoting the sketches, as one person quotes a sketch, another recognizes it and says another quote without context, assuming everyone will recognize it. Perhaps a more contemporary version of this might be ''The Simpsons'' or ''Family Guy'' quote frenzies.
|
|
18
|
October 10, 2005
|
Snapple
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063505/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=20#:~:text=Monday%27s%20drawing%3A%20Snapple Original title</span>]: '''Monday's drawing: Snapple'''</big></big>
|
Sn = tin
|
:[Above the frames:]
:This one is entirely James' fault.
:[Two Cueball-like guys are standing and talking.]
:Cueball: Here, take a bite of this Snapple.
:Friend: food!
:[Cueball's friend takes a bite.]
:Friend: Ow! What is this?
:''Clink''
:[The panel switches to Cueball.]
:Cueball: It's an apple infused with tin.
:[Beat panel. A wide shot of the two.]
:[Same scene, except the panel is lightly shaded and there is a box above saying:]
:Those of you who know your periodic table should be laughing right about now.
|
This was the seventeenth comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 17: What If, and the next one was 19: George Clinton.
Snapple is a brand of beverages that mostly sells bottled juices and teas. Its name is based on a carbonated apple juice the company once produced ("snappy apple"). In this comic, Cueball hands another Cueball-like guy an apple calling it a "Snapple". When the guy bites into it, his teeth are blocked by the apple's metallic surface because Cueball has infused the apple with tin. Tin is a metallic element whose abbreviation on the periodic table is "Sn" (as the Latin word for tin is "stannum"). Thus, the "tin apple" could be referred to as a "Sn-apple". The fourth panel is a silent wide shot, perhaps suggesting the joke was met with silence as a weak joke. As a meta-joke, the final panel might jokingly suggest that the silence is because those unfamiliar with the periodic table of elements don't get the joke. According to the caption at the top, James Zetlen presumably once made a joke to Randall Munroe|Randall similar to the one in the comic.
The title text continues the trend in early xkcd comics of explaining the joke rather than expanding to it.
|
|
19
|
October 12, 2005
|
George Clinton
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063505/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=20#:~:text=Wednesday%3A%20George%20Clinton Original title</span>]: '''Wednesday: George Clinton'''</big></big>
|
I still wish it were true.
|
:[George Clinton uses a baton to point to the bottom of two equations on a blackboard. There is one more equation and a diagram on another blackboard to the right, which is cut off. There is text above:]
:I once tried to start the urban legend that George Clinton has a B.A. in mathematics
:[On the left blackboard there are two formulas:]
:L(F(t)
|
This was the eighteenth comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 18: Snapple, and the next one was 20: Ferret.
George Clinton (funk musician)|George Clinton is an American musician most famous for his funk music and wild hair style. His recorded music features themes of space, sci-fi, technology, and futurism. As Randall says, he had attempted to spread around an urban legend that George Clinton had a Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics, but he found himself believing it was true. This behavior is related to pseudologia fantastica, which is more commonly known as pathological or compulsive lying. This comic references the associated behavior that an "individual may be aware they are lying, or may believe they are telling the truth, being unaware that they are relating fantasies." These individuals may eventually stop the lie as demonstrated by the title text, which indicates that at some later time, the individual realized that the rumor was not true, but wishes it to be so.
The equations on the board are laplace transforms of functions. The first Laplace transform has a mismatched left parenthesis, which would be the topic of 859: (. The second formula is not the inverse Laplace transform as stated, as it differs from the actual Mellin's inverse formula by its bounds and a missing factor. An example of George Clinton's work most appropriate to this comic is the song "Mathematics" from the 1996 album T.A.P.O.A.F.O.M.. (The Awesome Power of a Fully Operational Mothership):
:I count the moments we're apart. And add them up mathematically
:and multiply them by the kisses supposedly I've been missing.
:Divided by the attention not to mention the affection.
:Subtract that from your gross potential and see I ain't missin' none.
::Cause any percentage of you is as good the whole pie.
::Any fractions thereof brings dividends of interest.
::Any percentage of you is as good as the whole pie.
::Any fractions thereof brings dividends of love.
:I take the square root and get boxed in every time.
:When I know the shortest distance between two points is in a straight line.
:I'ma go into you, I'ma come into you two times, and carry the fun over the one to where we equal one.
|
|
20
|
October 14, 2005
|
Ferret
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063505/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=20#:~:text=1%3A16%20pm-,Friday%27s%20Drawing,-My%20brother%20has Original title</span>]: '''Friday's Drawing'''</big></big>
|
My brother had a ferret he loved which died since I drew this strip. RIP.<br><br><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063505/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=20#:~:text=1%3A16%20pm-,Friday%27s%20Drawing,-My%20brother%20has Original caption</span>]: My brother has a ferret. He holds it like that and generally adores it. I have to concede that it's pretty cute, if smelly.
|
:[A color drawing of a ferret with airplane wings and tail on it.]
:[Cueball and his Cueball-like friend (to the left) are talking.]
:Friend: Why on earth did you make those wings? You don't seriously think they could let your ferret fly, right?
:Cueball: I... of course not.
:[They continue to talk.]
:Cueball: That would be pretty dumb. It's just, uh... ...a Halloween costume.
:Friend: oh, okay.
:[They continue to talk. The head of the ferret can be seen to the far right on a table.]
:Friend: Besides, who would want a pet to fly anyway?
:Cueball: Yeah. Pretty lame, huh?
:[The friend leaves the frame while Cueball stays. The ferret cannot be seen.]
:Friend: Anyway, let's go play video games.
:[Cueball stands behind after his friend has left. He looks back towards his ferret.]
:[Cueball imagines his ferret flying over the ocean near the beach using his makeshift wings while holding his ferret.]
|
This was the nineteenth comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 19: George Clinton, and the next one was 21: Kepler.
Cueball built wings for his ferret and his friend asks why, indicating that it would be foolish to think that this would allow the ferret to fly. Cueball did, in fact, build these wings in hopes of allowing his ferret to fly, but dissembles in order to avoid losing face with his friend. Then the friend suggests they go play video games instead, while Cueball imagines the ferret actually flying. The fact that Cueball lies about his goal may be a commentary on abandoning dreams to avoid confronting societal expectations.
The title text refers to the fact that Randall Munroe|Randall's brother in real life had such a pet ferret. As shown by the original caption, Randall drew this comic while the ferret was still alive, but then it passed away in between his posting it on LiveJournal and reposting it with a title text on [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com]. He now wishes that it will rest in peace.
This is the second in a six-part series of comics whose parts were randomly published during the first several dozen strips. The series features Barrel Boy, a character that is different from what would quickly become the xkcd stick figure style. The full series can be found :Category:The Boy and his Barrel|here. After Randall released the full [http://liveweb.archive.org/web/20070207052159/http://www.xkcd.com/barrel.html The Boy and his Barrel] story on the site, it became clear that the original comic 20: Ferret was also part of the series. The comics are listed in the order chosen by Randall:
* 1: Barrel - Part 1
* 20: Ferret
* 11: Barrel - Part 2
* 22: Barrel - Part 3
* 25: Barrel - Part 4
* 31: Barrel - Part 5
|
|
21
|
October 17, 2005
|
Kepler
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063505/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=20#:~:text=10%3A58%20am-,Monday%27s%20drawing,-Another%20one%20which Original title</span>]: '''Monday's drawing'''</big></big>
|
Science joke. You should probably move along.<br><br><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063505/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=20#:~:text=10%3A58%20am-,Monday%27s%20drawing,-Another%20one%20which Original caption</span>]: Another one which, if you don't get, you're probably better off.
|
:[Two Cueball-like guys stand in an aisle in a store.]
:Cueball: Nice store. How do you keep the floors so clean?
:Store manager: Oh, we hired this dude named Kepler, he's really good. Hard worker. Doesn't mind the monotony. Sweeps out the same area every night.
|
This was the twentieth comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 20: Ferret, and the next one was 44: Love.
Johannes Kepler was a German mathematician, astronomer, and astrologer, best known for his laws of planetary motion. By using Tycho Brahe's observations of our solar system (Brahe gave Kepler the job of observing and explaining the motion of the planet Mars), Kepler was able to deduce that planets in the system do not move in circular orbits around the Sun, but rather in elliptical ones. In doing so, he directly contradicted Brahe's own conviction that the Earth was the center of the universe. According to Kepler's laws of planetary motion#Second law|Kepler's Second Law, "A line joining a planet and the Sun sweeps out equal areas during equal intervals of time," somewhat akin to sweeping a broom over the floor. In the comic, the janitor Kepler also sweeps the same area, although in this case, "area" is used in the sense of "surface" (of floor) rather than in the purely mathematical sense. It is also very monotonous, like a planet's set orbit, but Kepler doesn't mind this.
The comic could also be seen as a subtle reference to the Kepler space telescope that was searching for exoplanets (planets outside the Solar system) from March 2009 to August 2013, by looking at exactly the same spot in the night sky over and over again. Even though the telescope was not launched until 4 years after this comic was published, the details of Project Kepler had been disclosed by NASA press releases [https://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/news/releases/2001/01_107AR.html as early as 2001].
The title text assumes that the reader is scientifically illiterate and won't understand the joke, which is ironic, considering how xkcd came to be known for embracing STEM fields and nerdiness in general.
|
|
22
|
October 24, 2005
|
Barrel - Part 3
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063505/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=20#:~:text=1%3A30%20pm-,Monday%27s%20Drawing,-The%20saga%20of Original title</span>]: '''Monday's Drawing'''</big></big>
|
A whirlpool!<br><br><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063505/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=20#:~:text=1%3A30%20pm-,Monday%27s%20Drawing,-The%20saga%20of Original caption</span>]: The saga of the boy and his barrel continues! ([http://www.xkcd.com/barrel_cropped_(1).jpg Part 1] and [http://www.xkcd.com/barrel_mommies.jpg Part 2])
|
:[A large and deep vortex is in the center; spinning water covers the whole panel. A boy in a floating barrel is near the edge, apparently about to be sucked in.]
:Boy: wow!
|
This was the twenty-third comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 40: Light, and the next one was 23: T-shirts.
In the first two comics in the :Category:The Boy and his Barrel|The Boy and his Barrel series, the boy is floating in the ocean in a barrel, making fairly innocent points about life's uncertainty. In this comic, the view has zoomed out considerably, and the boy is seen to be on the edge of a gigantic whirlpool. Thus, there is now a palpably heightened sense of danger, though the boy's reaction continues to be innocent wonder. The comic's visual composition is reminiscent of File:Maelstrom-Clarke.jpg|a classic 1919 illustration by Harry Clarke, made for Edgar Allan Poe's 1841 short story "A Descent into the Maelström." In the short story, the main character escapes from drowning by using a barrel to escape The Maelström.
The two links in the original caption used to link to the pictures of the first and third comic in the series, but they are now defunct. Here is the last part of the caption containing links to the archived pages: "([https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063505/http://www.xkcd.com/barrel_cropped_(1).jpg Part 1] and [https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063505/http://www.xkcd.com/barrel_mommies.jpg Part 2])".
This is the fourth in a six-part series of comics whose parts were randomly published during the first several dozen strips. The series features Barrel Boy, a character that is different from what would quickly become the xkcd stick figure style. The full series can be found :Category:The Boy and his Barrel|here. After Randall released the full [http://liveweb.archive.org/web/20070207052159/http://www.xkcd.com/barrel.html The Boy and his Barrel] story on the site, it became clear that the original comic 20: Ferret was also part of the series. The comics are listed in the order chosen by Randall:
* 1: Barrel - Part 1
* 20: Ferret
* 11: Barrel - Part 2
* 22: Barrel - Part 3
* 25: Barrel - Part 4
* 31: Barrel - Part 5
|
|
23
|
October 26, 2005
|
T-shirts
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063505/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=20#:~:text=1%3A10%20pm-,Wednesday%27s%20Drawing,-I%20saw%20the Original title</span>]: '''Wednesday's Drawing'''</big></big>
|
It's depressing how many of these are real shirts<br><br><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063505/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=20#:~:text=1%3A10%20pm-,Wednesday%27s%20Drawing,-I%20saw%20the Original caption</span>]: I saw the "problem" t-shirt (upper right) on campus a few days ago and suddenly felt so sad.
|
:[A collection of phrases on T-shirts. The first and the last on actual black T-shirts worn by the same person, whose facial expression is more sad on the last one.]
:I see dumb people
:As a matter of fact the world <big>does</big> revolve around me
:I can only please one person per day / today is not your day.
:You know what your problem is? You're stupid.
:Get a clue
:Do I <u>look</u> like a people person?
:Your village called / they want their idiot back
:Go away
:I hate you all
:Die.
:Help.
:Maybe if this T-shirt is witty enough, someone will finally love me.
:Oh God I'm so alone.
|
This was the twenty-fourth comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 22: Barrel - Part 3, and the next one was 37: Hyphen.
This comic satirizes the plethora of "snarky" phrase T-shirts that exist today. In the top-left, the character wears a typical (and real) snark shirt, "I see dumb people" (suggesting that the wearer thinks everyone else is dumb, while being a parody of the phrase "I see dead people" from the movie ''The Sixth Sense''). Other shirts shown also suggest that the wearer is better than everyone else, and perhaps the shirts increasingly suggest that the wearer is anti-social moving from top to bottom. Near the bottom of the screen, the T-shirts no longer attempt to be witty and simply have straightforward phrases like "go away" and "die". These are exaggerations of the message that the other more-realistic shirts broadcast.
The final three shirts are also exaggerated shirts that suggest Randall's view that people who wear snarky shirts are overcompensating for the fact that they are already alone or perhaps putting up a tough exterior to conceal their sadness that no one would talk to them anyway. Most notably "maybe if this T-shirt is witty enough, someone will finally love me" sums up what Randall thinks snarky shirts really say. There are shirts with this or a similar message, although it is unclear whether they were created before this comic or as a tribute to this comic.
In the title text, Randall says that it's depressing how many of the shirts in the comic actually exist in real life, further underlining the point that these shirts are overly arrogant, to the point where one might believe that Randall made them up. This highlights the inadequacy of substance within these T-shirts and the emotions they invoke in Randall's mind, as shown in the original caption.
|
|
24
|
September 30, 2005
|
Godel, Escher, Kurt Halsey
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20070927001941/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=40#:~:text=8%3A40%20pm-,Strip%20series,-One%20of%20a Original title</span>]: '''Strip series'''</big></big><br><br>#Explanation|↓ Skip to explanation ↓
|
I love the idea here, though of course it's not a great-quality drawing or scan.<br><br><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20070927001941/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=40#:~:text=8%3A40%20pm-,Strip%20series,-One%20of%20a Original caption</span>]: One of a series of strips I drew during a long and boring NASA lecture. It careers wildly from intellectual to chaotic to Godel, Escher, Bach to Kurt Halsey to chaotic and sappy.<br>The whole series is [http://www.xkcd.com/comic/comic.html here].
|
:Drawn during an unending NASA lecture
:[Two people are talking, one in a hat.]
:Cueball: it's just so hard to compare kids now with kids in the past. you can't help but to belong to one group or the other.
:Cueball: and of course every generation seems awful to the one before it. look at quotes from throughout history.
:Hatted: yeah, and it sure would be nice to have some historical perspective on some of this stuff. I just don't know what to make of it.
:[Circles are appearing--maybe snow?]
:Cueball: i guess you do what you can to help the people around you and hope it turns out okay.
:Cueball: in the end, what else can you do?
:Hatted: lead a crusade?
:[We can no longer see the people, just the circles.]
:it's presentism, man. the idea that historical context is irrelevant, that we understand it
:all that we need take no warnings from the follies of the past. that we're facing something new.
:socrates couldn't imagine the internet. but people don't change.
:[We can start to see a darker circle in the lower right corner.]
:(The borders between the three panels on this line are cracking.)
:have you seen those collections of historical pornography? talk about historical context.
:did you know the first porn photo was bestial in.
:[inside a circle:] nature?
:at least that stuff was out of the mainstream
:[each word in one circle:]
:no
:just
:in
:history
:(the three panels have merged into one on each row.)
:i don't know about you, but
:[circled] I
:[uncircled] never
:even once seen
:[The circles are highly variable in size now, and pressed up against a larger one on the right side.]
:[There is mass of circles of different sizes, with some dark fissures in between, against the side of a large circle which we can see part of in the right half of the panel. They look like cells. There's a tiny square in the center of the giant cell.]
:[We see only the tiny square, centered. It has a few marks inside it.]
:[Closer, the square is divided into rectangles of different sizes, each of which has text in it.]
:[Much closer, we can see fragments of the text. Some are sideways, some are cut off, some are too small to read.]
:machine language translated by principles of isomorphism it is a consequence of the Church-Turing thesis that ...
:but how do you select the channel you wish to se-
:thou ... shou ... palin ... stri ... it is a ... crab ...
:be obvious to one-s ... your great intellectual achievements ... Tortise. Why ... you give this old Tortise ...
:[Closer still, we can just see a huge sideways s and h.]
:[Those letters are faded and mixed with a faded version of the next panel.]
:girls take boys away ...
:never be further than a phone call and a goosebumped shiver away ...
:drove all night listening to mix tapes ...
:the past is just practice
:[There is a heart at the bottom and, in the lower left, the name Kurt.]
:[The same as the previous panel, but with the words blurred out to scribbles.]
:[Jagged, shaded shapes and strands start to fall. Faint panel borders appear again. There is a person on the far right.]
:(Back to three panels per row.)
:[Cueball and Megan are standing amid the fragments.]
:Cueball: There's too much. And so little feels important.
:[The jagged edge of the shaded area is encroaching on the sides of the panel.]
:What do you do?
:[We see them from farther away through a rough hole in the shaded area. Bits continue to fall around them.]
:[They are holding hands.]
|
This was the sixth comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 1: Barrel - Part 1, and the next one was 13: Canyon. It was among the :Category:First day on LiveJournal|first thirteen comics posted to LiveJournal within 12 minutes on September 30, 2005, on the first day of the xkcd LiveJournal account.
At the time xkcd was created, Randall was working on robotics at NASA's Langley Center. This comic was drawn during that period, while attending a talk that he didn't seem to like. The comic is drawn in the form of a storyboard and is intended to be visualized as an animated sequence. In the first part of the comic, two people discuss the difficulty of comparing past and present generations, since the person making the comparison invariably belongs to one of the two groups. The character with a hat is not Black Hat, as Randall hadn't standardized his character designs yet. The assembly of text panels found in the middle of the strip is similar to 124: Blogofractal. The philosophy of Kurt Gödel is also a theme in 468: Fetishes.
The name of the comic is a portmanteau-like play on the following:
* ''Gödel, Escher, Bach'' is a book by Douglas Hofstadter. He is an American author who has written several books about philosophy, mathematics, and science. This particular book is his most famous one, about "strange loops", self-reference, and recurring patterns, partially shown through the works of the three people in its title:
** Kurt Gödel was a 20th-century mathematician most famous for proving that in our commonly used axiomatic systems, there are true propositions that cannot be proved from the axioms. His proof used a self-referential paradox.
** M. C. Escher was a 20th-century artist most famous for mathematically inspired engravings of tessellated animals, impossible scenes, [http://philosopherdeveloper.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/devilsangels.jpg hyperbolic geometry], and so on. The form of this strip resembles one of his [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2c/Escher,_Metamorphosis_II.jpg Metamorphosis etchings].
** Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and musician from the Baroque Period, famous for numerous works such as the ''Brandenburg Concertos'' and his extensive use of the fugue form of composition, which involves the expression of a theme, its development, and finally a recapitulation or return to the original expression.
* Kurt Halsey is a comic artist from Oregon. His work often contains introspective philosophical musings. At least one phrase in the letter is attributed to Halsey, "The past is just practice".
The original caption contains a [http://www.xkcd.com/comic/comic.html defunct link], which indicates that the comic posted on LiveJournal was only part of this series. Unfortunately, both the image in the LiveJournal post and the link in the caption weren't archived in the Web Archive, so we can't confirm if there is even more to this comic than now available on [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com] or if the original post only covered part of this series. However, based on how Randall describes the "full series" in the caption ("It careers wildly from intellectual to chaotic to Godel, Escher, Bach to Kurt Halsey to chaotic and sappy."), it's more likely that the comic on [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com] is the full series, and the LiveJournal post only included the initial part, possibly to occupy less space in the feed. All the adjectives used in the caption perfectly match the flow of the comic.
|
|
25
|
October 31, 2005
|
Barrel - Part 4
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063505/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=20#:~:text=2%3A42%20pm-,Monday%27s%20Drawing,-(11%20Comments Original title</span>]: '''Monday's Drawing'''</big></big>
|
:(<br><br><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063505/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=20#:~:text=2%3A42%20pm-,Monday%27s%20Drawing,-(11%20Comments Original caption</span>]: By the way, here are all the barrel comics on a single (easily linked) page:<br>http://www.xkcd.com/barrel.html<br>I cheated, and went back and lightened the gridlines in #2. It was just bothering me. I'll try not to do that much. But as I'm not destroying anyone's childhood, I don't feel like I'm really pulling a George Lucas.<br>I mean, I'm not destroying more than one childhood.<br>Oops.
|
:[The barrel is shown on a grid paper background, floating sideways and empty in a choppy sea.]
|
This was the twenty-sixth comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 37: Hyphen, and the next one was 26: Fourier.
In the first three comics of the :Category:The Boy and his Barrel|The Boy and his Barrel series, Barrel Boy explored the ocean in a barrel and then encountered a whirlpool, all with a reaction of innocent wonder. Here, the empty barrel floating adrift, the title text, and a previous announcement by Randall that this would be the conclusion of the series, imply that the boy's encounter with the whirlpool separated him from the barrel, and he may have died.
This is the fifth in a six-part series of comics whose parts were randomly published during the first several dozen strips. The series features Barrel Boy, a character that is different from what would quickly become the xkcd stick figure style. The full series can be found :Category:The Boy and his Barrel|here. After Randall released the full [http://liveweb.archive.org/web/20070207052159/http://www.xkcd.com/barrel.html The Boy and his Barrel] story on the site, it became clear that the original comic 20: Ferret was also part of the series. The comics are listed in the order chosen by Randall:
* 1: Barrel - Part 1
* 20: Ferret
* 11: Barrel - Part 2
* 22: Barrel - Part 3
* 25: Barrel - Part 4
* 31: Barrel - Part 5
There was no original caption on LiveJournal for this comic. However, just three hours and four minutes after posting it, Randall made a new post, titled [https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063505/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip
|
|
26
|
November 2, 2005
|
Fourier
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063505/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=20#:~:text=Wednesday%27s%20Drawing%20%2D%20Fourier Original title</span>]: '''Wednesday's Drawing - Fourier'''</big></big>
|
That cat has some serious periodic components
|
:[Cueball is talking on the phone. A grotesque, spiky cat, who is apparently a Fourier transform, is looking at him.]
:Cueball: Hi, Dr. Elizabeth? Yeah, uh... I accidentally took the Fourier transform of my cat...
:Cat: Meow!
|
This was the twenty-seventh comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 25: Barrel - Part 4, and the next one was 27: Meat Cereals.
A Fourier transform is a mathematical function transformation often used in physics and engineering. The theory is that any line graph can be represented as the sum of a bunch of sine waves of different frequencies and amplitudes. (The most obvious application is in analyzing a sound recording in terms of the different frequencies of sounds used.) So, for any line graph, you can produce another graph of the frequencies and their amplitudes. This can be done by evaluating an integral based on the function, which is referred to as "taking the Fourier transform" of the function. The form of the integral that needs to be taken is actually shown in the third line of the comic 55: Useless.
Unfortunately, Cueball has applied this "transform" to his cat. Indeed, whatever he has done has literally ''transformed'' his cat into the shape of an amplitude line graph. Although the cat seems to be alive and largely unharmed, it is clearly not in its familiar shape, and it is not clear if this condition is permanent or not. Notably, the fact the cat is still alive relates to an important property of Fourier transformation: the information of the original graph is fully preserved and can even be reversed to produce the original graph. How a reverse Fourier transformation would apply to a transformed cat has yet to be seen.
Cueball is, in this particular comic, likely Jon from ''Garfield''. The name of Garfield's vet in the comic is Liz, and a recurring joke in that strip is Jon calling Liz to report various strange ailments befalling Garfield. "Periodic components" in the title text refers to the spikes in the graph. Because sine waves repeat themselves as you go along, the presence of large amounts of one particular sine wave in the Fourier transform graph (each spike) shows that the overall result (the initial graph) is likely to have parts that also repeat themselves, like a periodic function. In other words, the cat has repeating parts.
|
|
27
|
November 4, 2005
|
Meat Cereals
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063505/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=20#:~:text=Friday%27s%20Drawing%20%2D%20Meat%20Cereals Original title</span>]: '''Friday's Drawing - Meat Cereals'''</big></big>
|
Disgusting
|
:[A collection of fictional meat-based cereals in bright colors with nice pictures on them.]
:Pork Loops
:Mice Krispies
:Hammios
:Frosted Bacon Flakes
:Scrapple Jacks
::Hey, these don't taste like Scrapple!
:Honey Bunches of Goats
|
This was the twenty-eighth comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 26: Fourier, and the next one was 30: Donner.
Randall Munroe|Randall parodies several real-world breakfast cereals (which typically consist solely of grains and sweet flavorings) by creating versions that contain meat (animal products). The cereals that appear to be parodied (clockwise from top-left) include Froot Loops, Rice Krispies, Honey Bunches of Oats, Apple Jacks, Frosted Flakes, and Cheerios. There does not appear to be a deeper meaning to this comic than that. The Scrapple Jacks parody (the only slightly obscure reference) appears to be made with scrapple, which, according to Wikipedia, is a mush of pork scraps and trimmings combined with cornmeal and wheat flour, often buckwheat flour, and spices. Real Apple Jacks ran an ad campaign in the 1980s and 1990s in which an adult or authority figure tasted the cereal and declared "these don't taste like apples!", thus missing the point of why kids liked the cereal. The slogan is parodied on the Scrapple Jacks box. Randall referenced this same slogan again in "38: Apple Jacks".
The title text apparently reflects Randall's opinion of his own creation.
|
|
28
|
November 14, 2005
|
Elefino
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063505/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=20#:~:text=Monday%27s%20Drawing%20%2D%20Elefino Original title</span>]: '''Monday's Drawing - Elefino'''</big></big>
|
Hell if I know
|
:Q: What do you get when you cross an Elephant with a Rhino?
:[Picture of elephant, mathematical addition symbol, picture of rhino, equals sign, large question mark.]
:A: I haven't a goddamn clue.
|
This was the thirty-second comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 29: Hitler, and the next one was 31: Barrel - Part 5.
The answer for the riddle in this comic is given by the title text, "Hell if I know", which, when spoken out loud, sounds like the title of this comic, "Elefino". "Elephino" is a portmanteau of the words "'''eleph'''ant" and "rh'''ino'''". In the comic itself, Randall Munroe|Randall unexpectedly says, "I haven't a goddamn clue", which still conveys the same meaning but ruins the joke instead of giving the punchline. As with many of the earlier comics, the title text explains the joke rather than adding to it.
This word play is reminiscent of the final scene in Buster Keaton's 1921 short (23 minute) film '''The Boat''' in which the titulular boat is named the ''Damfino'', a word play on "Damned if I know." Keaton answers his wife's question "Where are we?" by mouthing the name of the boat in the final scene. The filmmakers relied on audiences to read Keaton's lips, as his answer was not intertitled.
|
|
29
|
November 11, 2005
|
Hitler
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063505/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=20#:~:text=Friday%27s%20Drawing%20%2D%20Hitler Original title</span>]: '''Friday's Drawing - Hitler'''</big></big>
|
So he's saying that God thought Hitler's art was so bad that the Holocaust was an acceptable alternative. It's no secret that the hat guy is closely based on Aram, from Men in Hats.<br><br><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063505/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=20#:~:text=Friday%27s%20Drawing%20%2D%20Hitler Original caption</span>]: Yes, it's entirely possible that those two are [http://meninhats.com/d/20040225.html Aram and Gamal].
|
:[Black Hat and Cueball are talking together in the same position in all four panels.]
:Cueball: Learning about the Holocaust has really shaken my belief in God.
:Black Hat: You know, as a young man, Hitler was rejected from art school.
:Cueball: Yeah... shame he didn't get in.
:Black Hat: Well, have you seen any of his paintings? They're <u>awful</u>. Defy all rules of composition.
:Cueball: What are you suggesting?
:Black Hat: Maybe there <u>is</u> a god, but he's a real art lover.
:Cueball: This is why I don't go out in public with you.
|
File:Man in Hats.png|400px|thumb|right|The ''[http://meninhats.com/d/20040225.html Men in Hats comic]'' on which Black Hat is based on.This was the thirty-first comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous was 34: Flowers, and the next one was 28: Elefino.
Cueball speaks to Black Hat about the Holocaust and Adolf Hitler. Hitler was the leader of Nazi Germany beginning in 1933 and starting World War II in 1939 by attacking Poland. During that war, the Germans (under Hitler's leadership) killed millions of people; most of them were Jews, but other ethnic groups, homosexuals, and the mentally disabled were all targeted as well. This has come to be known as the Holocaust. Black Hat's comment that Hitler wanted to be a painter, but did not get into art school, is historically accurate. He applied to the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts twice. In any event, Cueball implies in the second frame that had Hitler been accepted into art school, the course of history might have changed, and the Holocaust might never have occurred. Black Hat suggests that perhaps God intentionally prevented Hitler from becoming an artist because God is an "art lover" and Paintings by Adolf Hitler|Hitler's art was terrible.
As with many of the earlier comics, the title text explains the joke rather than adding to it. It implies that God would have preferred the Holocaust to have occurred rather than allow Hitler to make some bad paintings. Such a comment that God could be so callous would surely be offensive to many people. Cueball's reaction to this shocking statement is relatively mild and suggests that Black Hat has made such controversial statements before. He will make a similarly controversial and Nazi-related statement again in 984: Space Launch System. The title text also says Black Hat is based on a character named Aram from a now discontinued webcomic called ''[http://www.meninhats.com Men in Hats]'' and, in the original caption, Randall Munroe|Randall directed the user to a specific ''Men in Hats'' [http://meninhats.com/d/20040225.html comic about parenting]. Like Black Hat, Aram frequently made judgmental, insulting, or controversial comments in a very emotionless manner. Aram wore a dark grey suit with a red bowtie and a black top hat with a white strip above the brim. Black Hat's hat clearly evolved from the top hat design later in xkcd.
|
|
30
|
November 7, 2005
|
Donner
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063505/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=20#:~:text=Monday%27s%20Drawing%20%2D%20Donner Original title</span>]: '''Monday's Drawing - Donner'''</big></big>
|
Some people haven't heard of the Donner Party. They were pioneers who got stranded and likely resorted to cannibalism.
|
:[Three people stand outside a restaurant; Megan, a man with some hair and another shorter person, probably a woman. There is a sign above the door which says "Joe's" (presumably the name of the restaurant) and a menu next to it. Outside the door, there is a maître d' with a cap behind a lectern. There is a sign on the lectern which says "Eat in".]
:maître d': Donner, party of four?
:Man: Actually, never mind.
:Megan: We're full.
|
This was the twenty-ninth comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 27: Meat Cereals, and the next one was 34: Flowers.
The Donner party was a group of pioneers who set out west along a new route that was supposed to be easier to travel, but ultimately proved slow and treacherous. They became trapped in the Sierra Nevada mountains, and many died. It is believed that many of the pioneers, low on food, resorted to cannibalism, eating the bodies of party members who had already died. In this comic, three Donner party members arrive at Joe's restaurant, where they have ordered a table for four, as given by the fact that the Maître d'hôtel|maître d' knows they are the Donner party and calls for a party of four. The three decline the table since they are already full. This suggests that they just have eaten the fourth member (unknown to us) of their party after they placed the order for a table at the restaurant, but before they strolled over to it anyway. Of course, since they are not in a survival situation in this comic, cannibalism would be completely unnecessary. However, it may be possible that they are suffering from Wendigo|Wendigo Psychosis. Alternatively, the Donner Dinner Party may have resorted to cannibalism because it took so long to be seated at the restaurant.
As with many of the earlier comics, the title text explains the joke rather than adding to it.
|
|
31
|
November 16, 2005
|
Barrel - Part 5
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063505/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=20#:~:text=11%3A54%20am-,Barrel%20%2D%20Part%205,-The%20ferret%20got Original title</span>]: '''Barrel - Part 5'''</big></big>
|
Too good not to happen.<br><br><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063505/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=20#:~:text=11%3A54%20am-,Barrel%20%2D%20Part%205,-The%20ferret%20got Original caption</span>]: The [http://www.xkcd.com/ferret.html ferret] got to fly, in the end!
|
:[A boy is grasping on to a piece of driftwood in an ocean.]
:[A zoomed out view of the boy still grasping on to a piece of driftwood in the ocean.]
:[A ferret with some airplane wings and an airplane tail flies above the ocean.]
:[A shot of the ocean, now empty.]
:[The flying ferret is carrying the boy to safety.]
:[The ferret carrying the boy is now in the distance with the sun on the horizon.]
|
This was the thirty-third comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 28: Elefino, and the next one was 32: Pillar.
This gives a happy ending to the :Category:The Boy and his Barrel|The Boy and his Barrel series, with the flying ferret from 20: Ferret. The humor is derived from the juxtaposition of two unlike elements - in this case, the contemplative and even dark nature of the series being resolved through the timely intervention of a comical flying animal. The ferret could also be interpreted as a symbol of hope and following one's dreams, since in its original appearance, its powers of flight were just a dream. However, the dream becomes reality to save a child from an endless sea of hopelessness.
This is the last in a six-part series of comics whose parts were randomly published during the first several dozen strips. The series features Barrel Boy, a character that is different from what would quickly become the xkcd stick figure style. The full series can be found :Category:The Boy and his Barrel|here. After Randall released the full [http://liveweb.archive.org/web/20070207052159/http://www.xkcd.com/barrel.html The Boy and his Barrel] story on the site, it became clear that the original comic 20: Ferret was also part of the series. The comics are listed in the order chosen by Randall:
* 1: Barrel - Part 1
* 20: Ferret
* 11: Barrel - Part 2
* 22: Barrel - Part 3
* 25: Barrel - Part 4
* 31: Barrel - Part 5
The original caption included a link to 20: Ferret the second comic in the series. The link is now defunct, but there's an [https://web.archive.org/web/20070207052159/http://www.xkcd.com/barrel.html archived version].
|
|
32
|
November 19, 2005
|
Pillar
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063505/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=20#:~:text=Friday%27s%20Drawing%20%2D%20Pillar Original title</span>]: '''Friday's Drawing - Pillar'''</big></big>
|
A comic by my brother Doug, redrawn and rewritten by me<br><br><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063505/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=20#:~:text=Friday%27s%20Drawing%20%2D%20Pillar Original caption</span>]: Oops, I totally forgot to update yesterday afternoon. Well, I haven't slept, so I say it's still Friday. It's been a weird couple days and I was just thinking it was the weekend. Anyway, the first version of this strip was drawn by me and then written by Doug. I redrew/wrote it and now you are reading it! Cool, huh?<br>Also, all the barrel strips are now [http://www.xkcd.com/barrel.html here] for easy linkage to people you think might like them.
|
:[At the top of the panel is a black frame with the following text:]
:This one is mostly by my little brother, Doug.
:[A Cueball-like guy stands on the top of a tall pole and talks to his Cueball-like friend on the ground. The drawing is repeated three time in the same panel, once for each comment by the two guys.]
:Pole-guy: The sky is so blue, and all the leaves are green.
:Friend: Haven't you ever wondered if we really see the same colors as everyone else? It's all perception.
:Pole-guy: Well, you might as well call into question all of human experience. Who really knows what world someone else sees?
:Friend: Yeah, I guess.
:Pole-guy: Anyway, can you help me down from this pole?
:Friend: What pole?
|
This was the thirty-fourth comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 31: Barrel - Part 5, and the next one was 33: Self-reference.
Two Cueball-like guys ponder the unanswerable philosophical question of whether all people observe the universe the same, or whether, for example, what one person sees as "red" might be what another see as "green". They muse that no one really knows how anyone else sees the world. The misdirection and punchline of the comic come when the pole-guy asks if his friend can help him down from this pole where he's been standing for the entire comic. The friend's reply indicates that he does not see a pole, proving that one person can observe the world differently than another, in this case, in a far more extreme and unexpected way than color differences.
Another interpretation of the punchline is that the friend doesn't like pole-guy's idea of questioning all of human existence and mocks that philosophy by pretending not to see that he is standing on a pole. The concept of a philosopher on a pole is likely a reference to many "stylites" or "pillar-saints" of the late antiquity period, perhaps the first and most famous them being Simeon Stylites. Unlike most other xkcd comics, the "panels" of this comic are not divided and are drawn within a single frame.
The title text and the original caption say the comic is based on a comic drawn by Randall Munroe|Randall's brother Doug, although Randall apparently redrew and rewrote it. In the original caption of the LiveJournal post, he also apologizes for forgetting to post the comic on a Friday and reminds people of the link he created to group all the comics in the :Category:The Boy and his Barrel|The Boy and his Barrel series, because the 31: Barrel - Part 5|previous comic was the last episode in the series. The link is now defunct, but there's an [http://liveweb.archive.org/web/20070207052159/http://www.xkcd.com/barrel.html archived version].
|
|
33
|
November 21, 2005
|
Self-reference
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063505/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=20#:~:text=Friday%27s%20Drawing%20%2D%20Self%2Dreference Original title</span>]: '''Friday's Drawing - Self-reference'''</big></big>
|
I think about self-reference a lot. Example: this comment.
|
:[Cueball is standing alone.]
:Cueball: I promise to never again squeeze humor out of self-reference.
:[Beat panel.]
:[Cueball is standing alone.]
:Cueball: God dammit.
|
This was the thirty-fifth comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 32: Pillar, and the next one was 41: Old Drawing.
Self-reference is a situation where something (a comic, a drawing, a musical work, a novel, a mathematical theorem) refers to itself in some manner. This can be a powerful technique in art, music, mathematics, and computer science (it is the basis of recursion). In this comic, Cueball promises not to use self-reference for humor, and then realizes after a beat panel that, since this comic is referring to the series of comics he is part of, he is using self-reference, thus breaking his promise. Without the last panel, this comic wouldn't be funny, and therefore wouldn't break the promise about using self-reference for humor. But with it, and his realization that he is breaking his promise, it does break that promise. Self-references have been used most famously later in 688: Self-Description, but was already used in 6: Irony and also in :Category:Self-reference|other comics. The webcomic
|
|
34
|
November 9, 2005
|
Flowers
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063505/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=20#:~:text=Wednesday%27s%20Drawing%20%2D%20Flowers Original title</span>]: '''Wednesday's Drawing - Flowers'''</big></big>
|
This is actually pencil on paper, just inverted and colored<br><br><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063505/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=20#:~:text=Wednesday%27s%20Drawing%20%2D%20Flowers Original caption</span>]: Original drawing is pencil on graph paper.<br>Bonus points if you can identify the flowers. 'cause I sure can't.
|
:[A sketch of flowers, drawn in green, red, and yellow on a black background.]
|
This was the thirtieth comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 30: Donner, and the next one was 29: Hitler.
This is a drawing of flowers made by Randall Munroe|Randall. According to the title text and the original caption on the LiveJournal post, he originally drew the flowers with a pencil on a white sheet of paper. Then, he used the invert feature of a photo-editing program to reverse it from black-on-white to white-on-black and colored to the flowers. The image below gives a good approximation of what the original drawing might have looked like. He also says the flowers are based on his imagination and aren't a real species.
<div><ul><li style
|
|
35
|
November 26, 2005
|
Sheep
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063441/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/#:~:text=Friday%27s%20Drawing%20%2D%20Sheep Original title</span>]: '''Friday's Drawing - Sheep'''</big></big>
|
I think it's the sheep zapping the cactus and not vice-versa<br><br><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063441/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/#:~:text=Friday%27s%20Drawing%20%2D%20Sheep Original caption</span>]: I'm still on vacation, sorry this is a bit late. I forgot what day it was. Anyway, I'll be back Monday, possibly with new drawings about cereal!
|
:[Caption in a black frame above the image written in normal letters not all caps:]
:Another from my high-school notebooks.
:[A sheep and a green saguaro cactus in a brown pot are linked by an arcing yellow electricity bolt.]
|
This was the thirty-seventh comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 41: Old Drawing, and the next one was 42: Geico.
Due to Randall's vacation, he picked out comics from his old high-school notebooks for the second time in a row. It is an unusual drawing.{{citation needed}}
The comic 520: Cuttlefish may be a reference to this comic. It may also be a Pokémon reference, with the sheep being the Electric type Mareep or its evolution Flaaffy, and the cactus being Cacnea or Cacturne.
The title text suggests that it may be the sheep that is zapping the cactus, while the original caption apologizes for the late comic release. This is the second time in a row that a Friday comic was released on a Saturday, as 32: Pillar was also released late.
|
|
36
|
<!--DO NOT ADD 2006-01-01 - this was NOT the actual post date of the comic, but merely the default date in the xkcd database. These comics do not have a known post date--> 2006
|
Scientists
| null |
A leading expert characterized the situation as 'retarded'
|
:[Cueball is staring at an empty box on the floor.]
:Cueball: In what scientists are calling "pretty gay", I can't find my shoes.
|
This comic plays on the type of statement that news reports often use: "In what [group of experts] are calling '[quote]'," to add more weight and credibility to their stories. In this case, Cueball is using the phrase to attempt to add gravitas to the (relatively mundane) fact that his shoes are missing, and he thinks it's "pretty gay" by assigning this opinion to scientists (rather than it being, presumably, his friend's or his own opinion). The same joke is at play in the image text where a leading expert thinks the situation is "retarded."
The phrases "pretty gay" and "retarded" are infantile and offensive slang for "foolish" or "contemptible", and so they are the opposite type of speech expected of experts on news reports. These terms were not generally considered more than mildly offensive by most of the public at the time this comic was posted. The cultural mainstream is now typically much more critical of this type of language, and this comic would likely be heavily criticized if it were published today.
There may be a second level to the joke: Randall was still working for NASA at the time the comic was posted, so his friends at that time would presumably include scientists and "leading experts". If his friends made fun of him for not being able to find his shoes, it would therefore be accurate to say that scientists had made those statements. However, since them being scientists is irrelevant to the legitimacy of their opinions about Randall's shoe problems, presenting their teasing as an expert opinion is humorously misleading; a similar joke is at play in 1206: Einstein.
|
|
37
|
October 28, 2005
|
Hyphen
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063505/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=20#:~:text=Friday%27s%20Drawing%20%2D%20Hyphen Original title</span>]: '''Friday's Drawing - Hyphen'''</big></big>
|
I do this constantly<br><br><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063505/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=20#:~:text=Friday%27s%20Drawing%20%2D%20Hyphen Original caption</span>]: Tune in Monday for the conclusion to the story of the boy and his barrel.
|
:[Cueball (on the left) is talking to his Cueball-like friend (on the right) about a car (left to both of them) that resembles a Volkswagen Beetle. Above the drawing is a statement:]
:My hobby: whenever anyone calls something an [adjective]-ass [noun], I mentally move the hyphen one word to the right.
:Cueball: Man, that's a sweet ass-car.
|
This was the twenty-fifth comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 23: T-shirts, and the next one was 25: Barrel - Part 4.
This is the first comic in the :Category:My Hobby|My Hobby series. In these comics, Randall Munroe|Randall suggests an obscure activity or pastime he enjoys that he declares as his "hobby". The semi-{{wiktionary|scatological}} suffix "-ass" is used as an intensifier in informal US English speech, usually attached to an adjective directly modifying a noun, as in "big-ass car" or "funny-ass comedian." In this comic, Cueball is exploring the increased humor aspect of changing "-ass" from a suffix modifying the adjective, to "ass-", a prefix modifying the noun, yielding a "big ass-car" or a "funny ass-comedian," the former presumably being a large car for carrying buttocks, the latter being a humorous comedian specializing in jokes about lower backs. The prefix "ass-" may also have a negative connotation, indicating that something is disliked. An "ass-car" may be a very terrible car, for example. On an interesting note, there used to be a car company called "Automobiles Sans Soupapes|A.S.S.". Another explanation would be that, since this suffix/prefix refers to an element of human anatomy, the car would be in the shape of said anatomical piece. (Or, conceivably, something to do with donkeys.)
In the original caption, Randall said the next comic would be the "conclusion" to the :Category:The Boy and his Barrel|The Boy and his Barrel series. However, 25: Barrel - Part 4 would turn out to not be the last comic in the series, as 31: Barrel - Part 5 and 20: Ferret would be included later likely to give an unplanned good ending to the story. Three hours and four minutes after posting 25: Barrel - Part 4, he made a new post, titled [https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063505/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip
|
|
38
|
November 30, 2005
|
Apple Jacks
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063441/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/#:~:text=Wednesday%27s%20Drawing%20%2D%20Apple%20Jacks Original title</span>]: '''Wednesday's Drawing - Apple Jacks'''</big></big>
|
There used to be these ads, see...<br><br><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063441/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/#:~:text=Wednesday%27s%20Drawing%20%2D%20Apple%20Jacks Original caption</span>]: Who else remembers those commercials?
|
:[Cueball is standing holding a bowl in his hand. His son is sitting on the floor playing video games.]
:Cueball: Hey, these don't taste like apples!
:Son: Fuck off, Dad.
|
This was the thirty-nineth comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 42: Geico, and the next one was 43: Red Spiders 2.
Apple Jacks is a breakfast cereal produced by Kellogg's. As the title text begins to explain, there was an ad campaign for the cereal in the 1990s that focused on someone (usually someone in authority like a parent) pointing out that Apple Jacks doesn't taste like apples, and one or more kids pointing out that it doesn't matter and that "we eat what we like". However, instead of laughing off his dad's comment and correcting him, as in the campaign, this son responds by simply saying "Fuck off, Dad.".
This could be a commentary on today's youth being far less respectful, as the son is playing video games and seems annoyed at being interrupted, though this does not align with Randall’s public views. It may not be the first time the father has used the line, and the son is irritated by the repetition. It could also be saying that the response in the ads is unrealistic, and this is a much more realistic response. The same ad campaign was referenced previously in 27: Meat Cereals on a parody cereal labelled Scrapple Jacks. Cereal advertising would be referenced again in 1470: Kix.
As with many of the earlier comics, the title text and the original caption help explain the joke rather than adding to it.
|
|
39
|
December 5, 2005
|
Bowl
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063441/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/#:~:text=Friday%27s%20Drawing%20%2D%20Bowl Original title</span>]: '''Friday's Drawing - Bowl'''</big></big>
|
For the moment it's a standoff<br><br><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063441/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/#:~:text=Friday%27s%20Drawing%20%2D%20Bowl Original caption</span>]: This is not the barrel boy.<br><small>'''Current Mood:''' ''Final Exam-y''</small>
|
:[A boy is glaring at a model sailing ship floating in a bowl of water.]
:Boy: Sooner or later, my friend, one of us will run out of time.
|
This was the forty-first comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 43: Red Spiders 2, and the next one was 45: Schrodinger.
The comic roughly parodies a situation in which two characters are seeing who can wait longer to get the result they want. However, in the comic, the model sailing ship is not alive and doesn't experience time (except perhaps if it absorbs water and falls apart or beaches once the water in the bowl evaporates). The comic compares the patience of a boy with that of an inanimate object. Also, it could imply that the boy has too much time on his hands. Like many of the earlier comics, some of this comic's humor comes from the surreality of the situation. The gravity of the boy's statement is juxtaposed with the insignificance of a child's toy floating in a bowl of water. On one level, the absurdity of this is funny in itself; on another level, the audience is invited to imagine what might possibly be going through the boy's mind to make him take this toy and bowl so seriously.
Alternatively, the comic can be taken to recognize the mortality and ultimate fate of death/decay for both the boat and the boy, creating a grim moral. But, if one goes deeper into meaning, one could realize that the comic itself is humorous for trying to make a fatalistic statement using a boy and a toy boat, still making the comic ultimately humorous.
In the original caption for this comic, Randall Munroe|Randall states that this is not Barrel Boy because it would be easy to draw some parallels. They have a similar hairstyle and Barrel Boy was floating on the water in a barrel, while this boy is looking into a bowl filled with water.
|
|
40
|
October 21, 2005
|
Light
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063505/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=20#:~:text=1%3A03%20pm-,Friday%27s%20Drawing,-(3%20Comments Original title</span>]: '''Friday's Drawing'''</big></big>
|
Like a beacon
|
:[A crowd of figures stand around in the dark. A Megan is illuminated by a beam of light.]
:In a dark and confusing world,
:you burn brightly
:I never feel lost
|
This was the twenty-second comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 44: Love, and the next one was 22: Barrel - Part 3.
Beacons, often in the form of lighthouses, were built on coasts to give ships a point of reference where land was, so that they could find where they were going, and to know where they should avoid during a storm. In the comic, Megan fills this role for Cueball: she is his beacon to know where he can be safe. This also has a romantic notion, as Megan is lighting up the world for Cueball to find her.
|
|
41
|
November 23, 2005
|
Old Drawing
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063441/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/#:~:text=Wednesday%27s%20Drawing%20%2D%20Old%20Notebook Original title</span>]: '''Wednesday's Drawing - Old Notebook'''</big></big>
|
I don't want to talk about it<br><br><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063441/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/#:~:text=Wednesday%27s%20Drawing%20%2D%20Old%20Notebook Original caption</span>]: I'm on vacation! At home. Fresh drawings when I return!
|
:[A tree holding a chainsaw over a recently cut-down tree. The first text is in a frame at the top of the panel.]
:I found this in one of my high-school notebooks. I think I drew it just to take revenge on people snooping through my stuff.
:Tree stump: Well, you stumped me...
|
This was the thirty-sixth comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 33: Self-reference, and the next one was 35: Sheep.
This comic plays off the pun between [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stumped stumped], meaning confused or at a loss, and a Tree stump|tree stump, which is the remnants of a tree that has been cut down. Anyone snooping into his journal would be punished by such a terrible pun. In the title text, Randall Munroe|Randall says the pun is so terrible he doesn't even want to talk about it.
|
|
42
|
November 28, 2005
|
Geico
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063441/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/#:~:text=Monday%27s%20Drawing%3A%20Geico Original title</span>]: '''Monday's Drawing: Geico'''</big></big>
|
David did this<br><br><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063441/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/#:~:text=Monday%27s%20Drawing%3A%20Geico Original caption</span>]: <small>'''Current Mood:''' ''File:sick.gif|12px sick''</small>
|
:[Cueball holding a golf club.]
:Cueball: I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by threatening my agent with a golf club.
|
This was the thirty-eighth comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 35: Sheep, and the next one was 38: Apple Jacks.
This comic references a long-running ad campaign for Geico insurance in which a character (different in each commercial) lists a series of horrible events or news, but then caps it off with "but I've got good news: I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to Geico" – news that may be good, but is usually either trivial compared to the magnitude of the preceding bad news, or else is said to the person whom all of the preceding bad news applied to, giving them false hope that the good news was for them. It became a recognizable pop culture phrase. In this one-panel comic, Cueball parodies the punchline by saving money on his car insurance by intimidation, instead of choosing the best provider. A golf club would later also be used for similarly socially unacceptable actions in 81: Attention, shopper, and Geico's ad would be mentioned again in 870: Advertising.
In the title text, Randall Munroe|Randall attributes this comic to the unknown friend David. He does the same in 51: Malaria and 100: Family Circus. We can assume (or rather, we can ''hope'') that "this" refers to the act of writing the comic, as opposed to the act of threatening his insurance agent.
|
|
43
|
December 2, 2005
|
Red Spiders 2
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063441/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/#:~:text=Friday%27s%20Drawing%20%2D%20Red%20Spiders%202 Original title</span>]: '''Friday's Drawing - Red Spiders 2'''</big></big>
|
This was actually drawn years before Red Spiders<br><br><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063441/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/#:~:text=Friday%27s%20Drawing%20%2D%20Red%20Spiders%202 Original caption</span>]: And lo, they still have six legs.
|
:[Nine red spiders, with round appendages at the end of each of their six legs, are seen navigating an environment of blocks and other geometric constructions. The second-from-the-top spider appears to be holding a block down for the spider just below to climb on to help it up, or they might be lifting the block together. One is almost outside the frame at the top.]
|
This was the fortieth comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 38: Apple Jacks, and the next one was 39: Bowl.
This is the second comic in the :Category:Red Spiders|Red Spiders series, published just over 2 months after the 8: Red spiders|first one. Like its predecessor, it is more of a sketch than a comic. The titular spiders appear to be ascending —or possibly building— a structure, probably to get into the window at the top of the picture. Two spiders at the top appear to be passing a block between them, implying that they are, at least, trying to change the structure.
In the title text, Randall Munroe|Randalll says the comic was drawn years before 8: Red spiders|the previous Red Spiders despite being posted later.
The full series of :Category:Red Spiders|Red Spiders comics:
*8: Red Spiders, the first one.
*43: Red Spiders 2, this one.
*47: Counter-Red Spiders, in which the humans begin a counter-offensive.
*126: Red Spiders Cometh, in which the spiders attack a city.
*427: Bad Timing, in which, in a style more typical to xkcd, the spiders attack a couple in the middle of a serious relationship discussion in a hot-air balloon.
*442: xkcd Loves the Discovery Channel, in which it appears briefly in the 14th panel crawling over a cube.
|
|
44
|
October 19, 2005
|
Love
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063505/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=20#:~:text=1%3A07%20pm-,Wednesday%27s%20Drawing,-(2%20Comments Original title</span>]: '''Wednesday's Drawing'''</big></big>
|
This one makes me wince every time I think about it
|
:[Cueball and Megan stand facing one another.]
:Cueball: I love you!
:Megan: I love you!
:[Same scene as before.]
:Cueball: I love you more!
:Megan: Yeah.
:[Beat panel.]
|
This was the twenty-first comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 21: Kepler, and the next one was 40: Light.
This comic expresses the view of a love that is unbalanced and unequal. And how one form of love can be painful when closely examined. It is customary for people in a romantic relationship, when one makes a declaration of love or affection, for the other to make a matching declaration. However, instead of continuing Cueball's escalation by saying the expected response "I love you ''more''!", Megan stops and agrees with him: he does in fact love her more than she loves him. This leads to an uncomfortable dynamic in the relationship, and the final frame shows the couple awkwardly standing in silence.
In the title text, Randall expresses how this comic is shockingly stark in its portrayal of love.
|
|
45
|
January 4, 2006
|
Schrodinger
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063441/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/#:~:text=Drawing%3A%20Schrodinger LiveJournal title</span>]: '''Drawing: Schrodinger'''</big></big>
|
There was no alt-text until you moused over
|
:[Black Hat and Cueball are standing next to each other. Above them the text is written in a box with shades around it.]
:Schrödinger's
|
This was the forty-second comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 39: Bowl, and the next one was 46: Secrets. It was among the :Category:Posted on LiveJournal after xkcd.com|last eleven comics posted both on LiveJournal and on [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com] after the new site was launched. This comic was published on the same day across both sites, but not all of them shared the same posting day.
This comic is a joke creating a humorously false synthesis, combining the principles of quantum superposition and the effects of reading a comic one panel at a time. Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment that illuminates the notion that a particle only resolves itself to its state upon observation, and until such observation is made, it is in all of its possible states simultaneously. In the thought experiment, a cat is both dead and alive until observation; likewise, in this comic, Black Hat and Cueball are likening the last panel to the box with the cat: until you read it, it is in a mixed state (a superposition) of both funny and unfunny. Finally, in the last panel, both of them say "Shit." The joke is that after reading the last panel, the comic is both funny (as it is unexpected) and not funny (as the last line was a non sequitur and therefore there is no climax) at the same time, thus proving Black Hat and Cueball wrong, hence them expressing discontent with the word "shit."
The title text, which Randall Munroe|Randall here unusually calls "alt-text", implies that it might only come into existence when the mouse over action takes place. This is another reference to the Schrödinger's cat concept, where the user can't determine if the title text exists until they hover the mouse over it. So, prior to hovering, the title text might be absent or present.
|
|
46
|
January 6, 2006
|
Secrets
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063441/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/#:~:text=1%3A14%20pm-,Secrets,-I%27m%20a%20fan LiveJournal title</span>]: '''Secrets'''</big></big>
|
I'm a big fan of Kurt Halsey<br><br><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063441/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/#:~:text=1%3A14%20pm-,Secrets,-I%27m%20a%20fan LiveJournal caption</span>]: I'm a fan of [http://www.kurthalsey.com/ Kurt Halsey], if you hadn't noticed. Don't click that right now, because it's depressing how much better at this he is than me.
|
:[Drawing of a lonely girl staring down with almost closed eyes. The first line of text stands next to her to the left. The last part bottom, right.]
:I just want you to share in my secrets
:and not run away
|
This was the forty-third comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 45: Schrodinger, and the next one was 47: Counter-Red Spiders. It was among the :Category:Posted on LiveJournal after xkcd.com|last eleven comics posted both on LiveJournal and on [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com] after the new site was launched. This comic was published on the same day across both sites, but not all of them shared the same posting day.
This comic addresses the issue of {{tvtropes|CommitmentIssues|commitment-phobic partners}}, people who get into relationships but get cold feet when it starts to get serious. The girl in the comic wants someone who can see every part of who she is and still love her.
In the title text, Randall Munroe|Randall mentions that he is a big fan of [https://www.amazon.com/s?i
|
|
47
|
January 9, 2006
|
Counter-Red Spiders
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063441/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/#:~:text=Drawing%3A%20Counter%2DRed%20Spiders LiveJournal title</span>]: '''Drawing: Counter-Red Spiders'''</big></big>
|
I hope we can stop them<br><br><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063441/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/#:~:text=Drawing%3A%20Counter%2DRed%20Spiders LiveJournal caption</span>]: [http://www.xkcd.com/red_spiders_small.jpg They] must be [http://www.xkcd.com/red_spiders_2.jpg stopped].
|
:[A stack of stick figures, standing on each others shoulders, 11 stick figures shown in the comic, extends from the bottom of the frame to the top. Cuboids hang in the air.]
:The counter-red-spider offensive begins...
|
This was the forty-forth comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 46: Secrets, and the next one was 48: Found. It was among the :Category:Posted on LiveJournal after xkcd.com|last eleven comics posted both on LiveJournal and on [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com] after the new site was launched. This comic was published on the same day across both sites, but not all of them shared the same posting day.
In previous comics, red spiders are seen navigating similar landscapes. Here, humanoid stick figures are standing on top of each other to reach some place above the top of the comic, in a similar manner to how the red spiders navigate, in order to engage in a counter-offensive against the red spiders. These stick figures must be extremely light, or gravity must be really weak there, because it is extremely unlikely or even impossible to have a stack of humans that tall.
The title text indicates that Randall Munroe|Randall hopes the counter-offensive is able to prevent the red spiders' attack. However, the invasion in 126: Red Spiders Cometh|Red Spiders Cometh suggests that it may have been unsuccessful. In the original caption, he provides two links to the images of the previous comics. The links are now defunct, so here's the caption with the archived versions of the links: "[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063826/http://www.xkcd.com/red_spiders_small.jpg They] must be [https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063826/http://www.xkcd.com/red_spiders_2.jpg stopped]."
The full series of :Category:Red Spiders|Red Spiders comics:
*8: Red Spiders, the first one.
*43: Red Spiders 2, in which the spiders begin building.
*47: Counter-Red Spiders, this one.
*126: Red Spiders Cometh, in which the spiders attack a city.
*427: Bad Timing, in which, in a style more typical to xkcd, the spiders attack a couple in the middle of a serious relationship discussion in a hot-air balloon.
*442: xkcd Loves the Discovery Channel, in which it appears briefly in the 14th panel crawling over a cube.
|
|
48
|
January 12, 2006
|
Found
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063441/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/#:~:text=10%3A41%20am-,Drawing%3A%20Found,-I%27ll%20get%20back LiveJournal title</span>]: '''Drawing: Found'''</big></big>
|
No more, no less<br><br><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063441/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/#:~:text=10%3A41%20am-,Drawing%3A%20Found,-I%27ll%20get%20back LiveJournal caption</span>]: I'll get back to science humor and awful puns soon, don't worry.
|
:[Cueball and Megan are standing on a white hill (presumably snow) with a grey sky covered with thick streaks of white, and small pink dots. All letters are written in lower case.]
:we are just two people
:who found each other
|
This was the forty-fifth comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 47: Counter-Red Spiders, and the next one was 49: Want. It was among the :Category:Posted on LiveJournal after xkcd.com|last eleven comics posted both on LiveJournal and on [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com] after the new site was launched. This comic was published on the same day across both sites, but not all of them shared the same posting day.
Cueball and Megan are standing together in the middle of a strangely expressionist landscape/environment. As indicated by the words in the comic, they have simply '''found''' each other, implying that there is no relationship between them other than running into each other.
As indicated in the title text, there is nothing else to say about how they met. In the original caption, Randall Munroe|Randall reassures his audience that he hasn't stopped making nerdy comics and puns, because a few of the previous comics diverged from these topics. 47 covered Red Spiders, and 46 covered relationships. The next comic, 49: Want, returned to xkcd humour.
|
|
49
|
January 14, 2006
|
Want
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063441/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/#:~:text=11%3A41%20pm-,Drawing%20%2D%20Want,-(2%20Comments LiveJournal title</span>]: '''Drawing - Want'''</big></big>
|
Well, she's pretty hot.
|
:[Cueball is standing talking in the same position in all four panels. In the second panel, Cueball seems to have hair.]
:Cueball: I want to be brave enough to tell you how I feel.
:Cueball: I want to say "I love you" <u>before</u> I hang up the phone for once.
:Cueball: I want to drive all night with you, listening to mix tapes, not caring where we end up.
:Cueball: Oh, and I also really want to get with your sister.
:Cueball: I mean, DAMN.
|
This was the forty-sixth comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 48: Found, and the next one was 50: Penny Arcade. It was among the :Category:Posted on LiveJournal after xkcd.com|last eleven comics posted both on LiveJournal and on [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com] after the new site was launched. This comic was published on the same day across both sites, but not all of them shared the same posting day.
Cueball is making an honest profession of his feelings. This is often held up as a valuable thing in cementing a relationship. In the first three panels, he makes the kind of cliched poetic, romantic statements that would typically be expected. In the last panel, however, he undercuts all of this by crassly revealing that he also really wants to have sex with his paramour's sister.
In the title text, he attempts to excuse his statement by reasoning that the sister is incredibly attractive.
|
|
50
|
January 17, 2006
|
Penny Arcade
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063441/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/#:~:text=1%3A53%20am-,Penny%20Arcade,-I%27m%20actually%20pretty LiveJournal title</span>]: '''Penny Arcade'''</big></big>
|
Of course, Penny Arcade has already mocked themselves for this. They don't care.<br><br><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063441/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/#:~:text=1%3A53%20am-,Penny%20Arcade,-I%27m%20actually%20pretty LiveJournal caption</span>]: I'm actually pretty fond of Penny Arcade, when I get the jokes.
|
:[A color drawing of Tycho, a man with wild brown hair in blue and cyan colored shirt. He has a big open mouth and holds one arm up while the other may be in his (unseen) pocket. He has two speech bubbles,]
:Tycho: You know what? If you've never played the 1995 SNES RPG "''Seiken Densetsu''", don't even <u>bother</u> reading today's strip.
:Tycho: We don't <u>need</u> your kind here.
|
This was the forty-seventh comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 49: Want, and the next one was 54: Science. It was among the :Category:Posted on LiveJournal after xkcd.com|last eleven comics posted both on LiveJournal and on [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com] after the new site was launched. This comic was published on the same day across both sites, but not all of them shared the same posting day.
[https://www.penny-arcade.com Penny Arcade] is a popular web comic that focuses on video game culture. The character in the comic is Tycho Brahe, one of the two main characters of the webcomic (the other being Jonathan "Gabe" Gabriel). Penny Arcade has a reputation for making obscure references to video games without explaining, expecting the reader to be as well-versed in gaming culture as they are, represented by the attitude shown in this comic. 'Seiken Densetsu', as mentioned in the strip, probably refers to ''Seiken Densetsu 3'', an Action role-playing game (Action-RPG) released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) in Japan in 1995, later to be known by the English title of ''Trials of Mana''. The game was neither released in the North American region nor officially translated to English until the release of ''Collection of Mana'' on June 11, 2019, more than thirteen years after this strip. However, many North American game players might also have recognized ''Seiken Densetsu 2'', the predecessor in the series, by its North American name of ''Secret of Mana''.
The title text acknowledges they know they behave like this, but they are indifferent to it and even joke about it into their own comics.
|
|
51
|
January 18, 2006 <!-- The comic was released three days earlier on xkcd.com than on LiveJournal (21/1 2006). We use the earliest possible day-->
|
Malaria
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063441/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/#:~:text=1%3A43%20am-,Malaria,-Current%20Mood%3A LiveJournal title</span>]: '''Malaria'''</big></big>
|
The malaria party was David's idea.<br><br><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063441/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/#:~:text=1%3A43%20am-,Malaria,-Current%20Mood%3A LiveJournal caption</span>]: <small>'''Current Mood:''' ''Credit to David for this one''</small>
|
:[Four Cueball-like children wearing party hats, a discarded balloon is lying to the right. There is text above:]
:we had a malaria party
:[And there is text below:]
:but it turned out not to be very much fun.
|
This was the forty-nineth comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 54: Science, and the next one was 52: Secret Worlds. It was among the :Category:Posted on LiveJournal after xkcd.com|last eleven comics posted both on LiveJournal and on [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com] after the new site was launched. This comic wasn't published on the same day across both sites, but most of them shared the same posting day. It was released on LiveJournal on January 21, 2006, three days after originally being posted on [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com]. See the #Trivia|trivia section below.
This comic humorously considers pox parties as a means of preventing malaria. During these "parties", adults gather their children to deliberately expose them to a communicable disease in order to promote Immunity (medical)|immunity. These parties are based on the fact humans can develop an adaptive immune response after being infected by a communicable disease by producing antibodies that will recognize future infections of the pathogen. For some illnesses, such as chickenpox, this response is particularly effective in reducing the seriousness of future infections in individuals with healthy immune systems. Furthermore, some illnesses, including chickenpox, are also thought to be less severe when the initial infection occurs in childhood, rather than adulthood. So, even though vaccinations remain a safer and more effective means of preventing severe disease, pox-parties may be held under the assumption that children will benefit from contracting an illness (and developing antibodies against it) while they are still young and the disease will be, in theory, less severe. Moreover, because transmission is planned/expected (at least for the 'guests'), those concerned may ''feel'' that they are more prepared to watch for and deal with the illness than if infection had occured during some unpredictable future occasion.
However, there are major differences between Poxviridae|poxes and Malaria|malaria that make the idea of a malaria party especially absurd:
# Unlike poxes, exposure to malaria does not necessarily reduce the risk or severity future infections. In fact, prior infections can actually increase the likelihood of getting malaria in the future. While poxes are caused by virus|viruses, malaria is caused by protists (a type of microorganism) of the ''Plasmodium'' genus. Malarial infection begins in humans when an infected mosquito bites them and introduces ''Plasmodium'' into the person's circulatory system via their saliva. At this point, ''Plasmodium'' will travel to the human's liver where they can mature and reproduce. After which, the pathogens typically return to the blood stream, where they can be picked up by a new mosquito vector. However, ''Plasmodium'' can also establish a dormant form in the liver, allowing malaria to reactivate years after symptoms have resolved and the blood infection has been cleared. Thus, having a malaria party would not be a useful exercise, as attending such a party would only increase the likelihood that an individual would suffer significant illness later on.
# As mentioned above, malaria is a mosquito-borne disease. Unlike poxes, which can be transmitted between people directly, ''Plasmodium'' are transmitted indirectly through a mosquito vector. While mosquitos do not suffer malarial disease themselves, they can become infected by ''Plasmodium'' when they drink the blood of a human with an active infection. Over the course of a week, the ''Plasmodium'' will then travel from mid-gut of the mosquito to the salivary glands, where it can be introduced to a new human host when the mosquito takes another blood meal. Since it takes approximately seven days for a mosquito to become infectious, the malaria party would have to go on for at least a week to facilitate the transmission of malaria between party-goers. Furthermore, the party-goers would theoretically have to sit around in a room full of mosquitos to accomplish their goal, which also does not sound like 'very much fun.' It is possible that this is what is being represented by the black dots on the ground, which could be interpreted as confetti or the dead bodies of swatted mosquitos. Furthermore, the balloon may be pictured on the ground to indicate that enough time has passed for the helium in the balloon to be exchanged with normal air through diffusion (however, it is likely that, in reality, the balloon would be fully deflated if the party lasted for a full week).
Therefore, the humor of this comic comes from the fact that the party-goers did not anticipate that their plan would be an uncomfortable and ineffective means of transmitting malaria between them, let alone preventing it, under-scoring the absurdity of such a party.
The title text blames David for the idea, while the original caption just seems to give him credit. He also mentioned David in 42: Geico and 100: Family Circus.
|
|
52
|
January 21, 2006 <!-- The comic was released two days earlier on xkcd.com than on LiveJournal (23/1 2006). We use the earliest possible day-->
|
Secret Worlds
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063441/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/#:~:text=8%3A15%20am-,Secret%20Worlds,-(1%20Comment LiveJournal title</span>]: '''Secret Worlds'''</big></big>
|
No two adjacent circles are the same color.
|
:[A multitude of circles connected with several lines. Most of them are rather small and colored red, yellow, green and blue. Nine of them are white, six of these are larger than all the other circles, but one is the same size as the largest colored (green) circle, and the two smallest are smaller than a few of the colored circles. Pieces of text are written in all the white circles. Although it can be confusing at first, the reading order is still the normal one: left to right and top to bottom. Reading the circles in that order gives the following text:]
:"Everybody has a secret world inside of them.
:All of the people in the whole world
:I mean everybody
:No matter how dull and boring they are on the outside
:Inside they've all got unimaginable
:magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing, worlds
:Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe."
:--Neil Gaiman
:Sandman
|
This was the fiftieth comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 51: Malaria, and the next one was 53: Hobby. It was among the :Category:Posted on LiveJournal after xkcd.com|last eleven comics posted both on LiveJournal and on [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com] after the new site was launched. This comic wasn't published on the same day across both sites, but most of them shared the same posting day. It was released on LiveJournal on January 23, 2006, two days after originally being posted on [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com]. See the #Trivia|triva section below.
The quote written in the large white bubbles comes from The Sandman (Vertigo)|The Sandman, a comic book series about dreams. Neil Gaiman is a science fiction and fantasy author who came to fame for writing The Sandman. The interconnected bubbles represent the secret worlds of different people and how they are connected. They may have the second meaning of the neurons in our brain. The title text indicates that Randall used the Four color theorem, which states that a graph theory|graph drawn on a flat plane (like this one) requires at most four colors so that each region differs from all of its neighbors. The comic uses four colors (red, yellow, green, blue). This clearly does not include the white bubbles with text. Here is the original quote:
{{Quote|Everybody has a secret world inside of them... All of the people in the whole world, I mean everybody — no matter how dull and boring they are on the outside. Inside them they've all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds... Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe.|[https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/413047-everybody-has-a-secret-world-inside-of-them-i-mean- Neil Gaiman]}}
|
|
53
|
January 23, 2006 <!-- The comic was released two days earlier on xkcd.com than on LiveJournal (25/1 2006). We use the earliest possible day-->
|
Hobby
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063441/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/#:~:text=4%3A47%20am-,My%20Hobby,-(4%20Comments LiveJournal title</span>]: '''My Hobby'''</big></big>
|
The only one of these games I really played was Area 51
|
:[A person with hair lies on the ground in a pool of red blood. At the top of the panel there is a caption. Then a text. And above the person there is a score with small lines around to indicate that it has just appeared over the body.]
:My hobby:
:When the police bust drug hideouts, I sneak in and hide. Then I jump out and startle them into shooting me so they lose points.
:-100
|
This was the fifty-first comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 52: Secret Worlds, and the next one was 55: Useless. It was among the :Category:Posted on LiveJournal after xkcd.com|last eleven comics posted both on LiveJournal and on [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com] after the new site was launched. This comic wasn't published on the same day across both sites, but most of them shared the same posting day. It was released on LiveJournal on January 25, 2006, two days after originally being posted on [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com]. See the #Trivia|triva section below.
This is the second comic in the :Category:My Hobby|My Hobby series. It humorously compares the rules of light gun cabinet arcade video games with real life. Randall suggests that his hobby is going to drug busts with the expressed purpose of getting shot as an innocent bystander, thereby causing the police to lose 100 points.
Drug busts are events where police attempt to catch drug dealers, suppliers, and financiers in situations with enough evidence to convict them. In the style of arcade video games being examined, drug busts are usually depicted as chaotic events with villains, innocent bystanders, captives, and allies popping up like spring loaded targets at a shooting range in a setting with lots of places to hide. If you don't shoot a hostile target sufficiently quickly, you will be shot, so it is common to shoot the wrong targets. To add extra challenge, these games often deduct points — or worse, cause damage to the player character — if the player shoots the wrong target. This is often frustrating; not only does the player feel that they have failed to judge their target properly, but the wasted time can cause them to get shot by the ''real'' targets.
Obviously, doing this in real life would be a really bad idea, as the hobbyist would quickly be killed. Whether this can even be a hobby is questionable because hobbies typically refer to actions that one does repeatedly, but if one was killed the first time, one would not be able to sneak into drug busts and startle police officers again. Also, if Randall actually did this, he would be dead and therefore unable to draw a comic about it.{{Citation needed}} The title text of 188: Reload references this comic.
The title text is a reference to the game ''Area 51 (1995 video game)|Area 51'', which was a popular shooter arcade game from 1995 (although a console/PC game Area 51 (2005 video game)|of the same name was released in 2005). Area 51 was one of many cabinet arcade games that featured a light gun that allowed players to aim at the screen and shoot in a realistic control mechanic. The title text confirms that the comic is referring to these light gun cabinet games specifically.
|
|
54
|
January 18, 2006 <!-- The comic was released seven days earlier on LiveJournal than on xkcd.com (25/1 2006). We use the earliest possible day-->
|
Science
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063441/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/#:~:text=11%3A04%20pm-,Science,-Bonus%20points%20if LiveJournal title</span>]: '''Science'''</big></big>
|
Bonus points if you can identify the science in question<br><br><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063441/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/#:~:text=11%3A04%20pm-,Science,-Bonus%20points%20if LiveJournal caption</span>]: Bonus points if you can identify the science in question.
|
:[A graph with a curve that begins at zero, then peaks at a given frequency, indicated via a thin vertical line, and then fades down towards zero. It is possible to see the data points, which fit the curve perfectly. The y-axis is labelled. Along the x-axis, the zero point and the frequency where the peak has its maximum are labelled and close to the arrow the unit of this axis is written.]
:y-axis: Energy Density
:Along the x-axis:
::0
::160.4
::GHz
:[Above the graph to the right is the following formula, with the last inner parentheses only included to make the formula clear, since in the drawing the fractions are written above and below horizontal lines:]
:I(f)
|
This was the forty-eighth comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 50: Penny Arcade, and the next one was 51: Malaria. It was among the :Category:Posted on LiveJournal after xkcd.com|last eleven comics posted both on LiveJournal and on [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com] after the new site was launched. This comic wasn't published on the same day across both sites, but most of them shared the same posting day. It was released on [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com] on January 25, 2006, seven days after originally being posted on LiveJournal. See the #Trivia|trivia section below.
The solid line represents the theoretical blackbody radiation|radiation for a blackbody at 2.73 K according to Planck's Law (derived as early as 1900 by Max Planck). The formula, almost as written in the graph, can be found Black-body radiation#Planck's law of black-body radiation|here. The only changes are that on Wikipedia, the frequency ''f'' is represented by the Greek letter ''ν'' (nu) and the temperature ''T'' is included as an independent variable, so ''I''(''f'') becomes ''I''(''v'',''T''). However, ''I''(''v'',''T'') still represents the Radiance#Spectral radiance|spectral radiance (similar to energy density). In this formula, ''h'' is the Planck constant, ''c'' is the speed of light in a vacuum, and ''k'' is the Boltzmann constant. The frequency (''f'' or ''v'') along the ''x''-axis is measured in gigahertz. The curve peaks at 160.4 GHz. There is no scale or unit on the energy density on the ''y''-axis.
The theory is that the blackbody in question was the universe at the point when it had cooled down enough Decoupling (cosmology)|to allow photons to escape, Chronology of the universe|0.38 million years into its Big Bang|13.8 billion years history. The photons that reach us today are the ones that have been travelling to us at lightspeed since then. As the light from astronomical objects suffers from redshift due to the expansion of the universe, and this shift becomes more pronounced with distance from the observer, this light displays in the infrared range.
The title text praises viewers who can identify where this equation and corresponding graph come from (without consulting this wiki, of course).
|
|
55
|
January 27, 2006
|
Useless
|
<big><big><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063441/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/#:~:text=4%3A38%20am-,Useless,-(3%20Comments LiveJournal title</span>]: '''Useless'''</big></big>
|
Even the identity matrix doesn't work normally
|
:[Different mathematical equations, all with a heart on left side, and all ending up with question marks.]
:√♥
|
This was the fifty-second and last comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 53: Hobby, but the next comic, 56: The Cure, was never posted to LiveJournal. It was among the :Category:Posted on LiveJournal after xkcd.com|last eleven comics posted both on LiveJournal and on [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com] after the new site was launched. This comic was published on the same day across both sites, but not all of them shared the same posting day.
Randall Munroe|Randall is attempting to apply mathematics to the concept of love to no avail. Specifically, he is attempting his "normal approach", which is a term used in mathematics for the method one typically uses to solve a certain type of problem. However, as love is not a well-defined mathematical entity, his normal approach is useless. Simply put: he's saying he has found no way of describing love using only the tools of mathematics.
From the top, moving left to right, he tries the square root of love, the cosine of love, and the derivative of love with respect to x. He then attempts to left-multiply love by a 2x2 identity matrix, and finally he defines a Function (mathematics)|function of love as a Fourier transform. These are all "normal approaches" to solving certain math problems. The message of the comic is that for someone who uses math to solve all their problems, defining love is impossible. It also indicates that love is not always a rational (or irrational) phenomenon.
|
|
56
|
January 30, 2006
|
The Cure
| null |
My first try at drawing a real face in years.
|
:[A charcoal drawing of Robert Smith's head and face.]
:[Caption below:]
:Robert Smith should do a cover of Coldplay's ''Clocks'', so when he sings "Am I part of the cure or am I part of the disease?" we can say, "Ooh, we know this one!"
|
This was the first comic posted only on [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com] and not on LiveJournal. The :Category:Posted on LiveJournal after xkcd.com|last eleven comics were posted both on LiveJournal and on [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com] after the new site was launched.
The "real face" is that of Robert Smith (musician)|Robert Smith, best known as the singer of the musical group The Cure, hence the title. When Robert would sing the above lines of Coldplay's song "Clocks (song)|Clocks", fans of his music would know the answer: he's part of The Cure.
In the title text, Randall notes that he has not tried to draw a real face in years, as he mainly draws stick figures. In that way this comic also sticks out.
|
|
57
|
January 31, 2006
|
Wait For Me
| null |
Opening dialogue by Scott
|
:[Cueball and Megan stand facing one another.]
:Megan: Why didn't you wait for me?
:Cueball: I thought you were gone forever!
:[Megan throws out her arms, and Cueball is looking down.]
:Megan: I said I'd be back in a minute!
:Cueball: The... the seconds went fast at first, but then they started to drag on.
:Cueball: She was there for me.
:[Same scene as before, except Megan has her arms out less.]
:Megan: You had an affair in the 90 seconds I was gone?!
:Cueball: ...yes.
:[Cueball and Megan stand facing one another in a smaller panel.]
:Cueball: And we had a son.
:[Same scene as before.]
:Cueball: He'd be about your age now.
|
This comic juxtaposes a familiar exchange with a surreal outcome.
Megan is returning after a short absence. Cueball reacts as if she had been gone for years, and admits to having an affair while waiting.
In this comic, a familiar exchange occurs where one person asks the other why they did not wait. The humor lies in the improbability of him falling in love and having an affair within 90 seconds, the impossibility of him having a son in that time, and the ridiculous notion that the son would now be about Megan's current age. This is of course impossible, as it would imply that Cueball experienced twenty-ish years of life in what felt like 1.5 minutes for Megan. (He might conceivably have managed to have sex in that time span, which would fit with the experience of Cueball in 1068: Swiftkey).
Scott appears to be a friend of Randall.
|
|
58
|
February 1, 2006
|
Why Do You Love Me?
| null |
Opening dialogue by Scott
|
:[Cueball and Megan are having a conversation. The same scene is shown for all panels.]
:Cueball: Why do you love me?
:Megan: I don't know; my heart never gave me a choice.
:Cueball: Aww.
:[Beat panel.]
:Megan: I wish it had.
|
Cueball asks "Why do you love me?" to Megan, a fairly common question that couples ask each other. She responds by saying, "My heart never gave me a choice," a seemingly very sentimental, romantic answer. However, after a Beat_(filmmaking)|beat panel, she effectively kills the romance of the moment by adding, "I wish it had," indicating that she would rather not have loved Cueball.
Scott appears to be a friend of Randall Munroe.
|
|
59
|
February 3, 2006
|
Graduation
| null |
Opening dialogue by Scott
|
:[Megan and Blondie are talking.]
:Blondie: What do you want to do when you graduate?
:[Same scene as before.]
:Megan: I want to become a lighthouse operator.
:Blondie: Oh?
:Megan: Yeah.
:[Cut to scene of lighthouse with text overlaid.]
:Megan: Lighthouses are built on interesting pieces of coast, so I'll have an interesting place to walk and swim, and great views of all kinds of weather. I'd feel good about myself and my work every single day.
:[Cut back to Megan and Blondie. Megan has her arms up.]
:Megan: I'd get to be the girl in the tower, only <u>I'd</u> be the one rescuing people.
:[Megan now has her arms down.]
:Megan: Why, what do you want to do?
:Blondie: I'm going to grad school. I don't really know why.
:[Same scene as before.]
:Megan: Wanna come hang in my lighthouse over breaks?
:Blondie: ...yeah.
|
Megan and Blondie (in her first appearance) discuss their plans for life after college. Megan has taken the increasingly unusual choice of pursuing a career as a Lighthouse keeper|lighthouse operator, a path that has become increasingly less traveled, as lighthouses have become ever more automated and supplanted by other solutions. Before GPS technology, Lighthouse|lighthouses were invaluable markers of where dangers to marine navigation, such as shallow reefs or coastal headlands, were located. Megan likes the idea of subverting the {{tvtropes|GirlInTheTower|trope of the helpless maid in the tower}} who needs saving, by helping to save seafarers by operating a lighthouse that helps them to find their way safely back home.
When it comes to her turn to answer her own question, Blondie answers that she plans to pursue Postgraduate education|postgraduate education, but admits that she has no purpose for doing so. After obtaining an undergraduate education|undergraduate/Bachelor's degree|bachelor's degree, Graduate school|graduate school is the next level of education, where students pursue a Master's degree|master's or Doctorate|doctoral Academic degree|degree. Augmenting one's education with post-graduate studies is a conventional career path, and would imply that the student has a definite plan for their career, yet some people may attend grad school only ''because'' it is conventional, without having any definite plan for their career. This appears to be the case for Blondie, contrasted with Megan's choice of a seemingly Blue-collar worker|blue collar/Skilled worker|unskilled career — one might expect such a career to indicate someone who has no specific career plan, yet Megan seems to know her exact purpose, unlike Blondie. The fact that Blondie then accepts an invitation to spend her breaks at Megan's lighthouse suggests that she finds this a more attractive prospect than her more conventional path.
Other comics with a similar theme about finding or taking unexplored paths, instead of fitting into the mold, include 137: Dreams and 267: Choices: Part 4.
Scott appears to be a friend of Randall Munroe.
|
|
60
|
February 6, 2006
|
Super Bowl
| null |
The Super Bowl is actually an elaborate ruse, concocted by a shadowy group in the mid sixties for this purpose. The "watch it for the ads" addition was a master stroke.
|
:[A green car with text above and next to it.]
:My hobby:
:While everyone is watching the Super Bowl, feeling smugly superior because they're "Only watching for the ads," I steal cars.
|
The third in the :Category:My Hobby|My Hobby series. The Super Bowl is the championship American football game of the National Football League, which is usually played each February, and the final game of the 2006 season, Super Bowl XL, was played on the evening of 2006-02-05, the day before this comic was released.
As the game is one of the most watched television broadcasts in North America, Super Bowl commercials|advertising during the game has become increasingly expensive (among the most expensive advertising rates of any broadcast) to the point where corporations produce their best, most expensive advertisements to air during the game, to ensure that they would get value out of the expensive spots. The Super Bowl has thus become notorious for the "best" commercials, with some viewers purportedly tuning in solely to see the commercials, rather than the actual football game. News reports the next day often highlight the best and worst Super Bowl commercials, as do websites devoted to Super Bowl commercials.
Realizing that the Super Bowl is viewed by a large percentage of the population, Randall, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, states that those people would be quite distracted during that time, and therefore it would be possible to steal cars without fear of being caught. The title text takes this even further, suggesting that the entire Super Bowl was invented entirely for the purpose of being a distraction for car thieves. Naturally, the addition of the ads would make this even more effective, as it would attract even more viewers and ensure that they stayed in front of the TV during commercial breaks as well as the game.
The phrase "I steal cars" also provides a contrast to the fact that many viewers are only watching for the advertisements, making their smug sense of superiority seem petty compared to the fact that they but not Randall are not stealing cars and that they therefore are morally superior to Randall in this respect. This calls into question whether or not they really are significantly superior by comparing this marginal superiority to not being criminals. Alternatively, Randall may resent these people for feeling superior even though they aren't actually superior (at least in the eyes of Randall) and therefore steal their cars as punishment. Or Randall might be implying that they have no reason to being smug as they are being duped into having their cars stolen, and the thief is the one in the best position to be smug.
Randall may have chosen to use a car as a reference to the large number of car commercials that play during the Super Bowl, in addition to the ease of stealing a car at that time.
|
|
61
|
February 8, 2006
|
Stacey's Dad
| null |
I bet she gets you to mow the lawn, doesn't she?
|
:[A hairy man.]
:Man: Look, I know you think that since I walked out she could use a guy like you. But trust me. That woman has got a lot going on, and you want none of it.
:Man: Get out while you still can.
:[Printed across the bottom of the panel.]
:'''Stacey's dad.'''
|
This comic refers to the song "Stacy's Mom" by Fountains of Wayne (See the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v
|
|
62
|
February 10, 2006
|
Valentine - Karnaugh
| null |
Love and circuit analysis, hand in hand at last.
|
:[An abstract design made of squiggly lines. Colored hearts fill in the gaps, with the largest heart being in the center of the lines.]
:(Text on right)
:You make me feel so much
:it all runs together
:I wish I could tell you
:[A large colored heart being crisscrossed by 3 thick lines in a vague triangle. Hearts border the intersection of the lines. Cueball and Megan stand on opposite sides of large heart in the center.]
:(Text on left)
:So few words
:for so many feelings
:crisscrossing my heart
:[An unevenly lined grid pattern is present, with small hearts present in select cells. A very large heart covers most of the grid on top of it.]
:(Text on right)
:A matrix of desire
:Tangled relations
:I can't simplify
:[A drawing of a Karnaugh map with individual cells being filled with hearts. 3 groups of 4 hearts have been circled, alongside a pair of hearts.]
:(Text on left)
:I wish I could find
:the Karnaugh map
:for love.
|
A Karnaugh map is a Boolean algebra tool that is used to simplify expressions. The final picture, the one that looks like a crossword puzzle, is similar to the way that a Karnaugh map is used on a Boolean truth table, to identify areas that can be simplified. [http://www.utdallas.edu/~dodge/EE2310/lec5.pdf This PDF document] shows how the process is used to simplify logic circuits. The lament of the Valentine's Day|Valentine is that feelings don't yield themselves to the same kind of analysis.
This comic has four pictures with lines of text alongside them. The text can be used to understand the picture. The first three pictures show love to become more coherent and well-defined but yet complicated. The last picture and text alongside it show Cueball's desire that there should be a way to simplify complications in love, just like Karnaugh maps for Boolean expressions.
The first line means that love is such an overwhelming feeling that it is hard to understand it and even harder to explain. The picture alongside has incoherent lines depicting the feelings of someone in love and hearts represents the overwhelming love.
The second picture and related text mean that the feelings are now identified to some extent but are numerous, and there are too few words to explain them. The picture depicts Cueball and Megan on separate side of his heart crisscrossed by many feelings. It shows that his inability to explain his feelings is like a barrier between them.
The third picture shows that Cueball has a much better understanding of love and now sees it as a matrix of desires and tangled relations, but it is still very complex to fully understand love.
The fourth picture shows a Karnaugh map that Cueball wishes he could find in the future to solve the matrix of desires and tangled relations that is love.
The phrase in the title text, "Love and circuit analysis, hand in hand at last" is likely a play on the more common phrase "love and marriage, hand in hand." It appears that Cueball has finally reconciled and understood his feelings of love via circuit analysis, and could be interpreted as a comment from Randall about how this comic has brought together love and circuit analysis together as such.
|
|
63
|
February 13, 2006
|
Valentine - Heart
| null |
Just pretend you're kidding.
|
:[A Valentine's Day heart bordered with wavy red lace-like pattern with text:]
<center>I want to wish you a
'''''<span style
|
The comic shows a Valentines card that starts off nicely, but then "[http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/that-escalated-quickly escalates quickly]" becoming very unromantic although probably very honest, that the only purpose of this card is getting the receiver into bed. It says that if this is not the case, if she (or he) doesn't want to go naked after receiving this card, then it is not really meant (i.e. their heart is not in it).
The title text implies that this is being offered as a Valentine that someone might give and then "pretend" that they were kidding. Which seems to imply that they would not, in fact, be kidding, that this represents their real feelings.
A funny thing is also that the text on the card implies that if the card indeed does get the receiver naked, that the action of giving it was truly meant. In that case, the giver would always deny that it was not meant and claim they are truly in love. Of course this cannot be true, since getting laid was the main motivation of appreciating the 'loved' one. "In it" could be an intentional sexual innuendo.
|
|
64
|
February 15, 2006
|
Solar Plexus
| null |
It hurts to be hit there, you know
|
:[Black Hat and Cueball are talking to each other.]
:Black Hat: Asolarplexussayswhat?
:Cueball: What?
:[Beat panel.]
:[Beat panel.]
:[Black Hat punches Cueball in the solar plexus.]
|
The Celiac plexus|solar plexus is a network of interconnecting nerves that is centered in the area of the abdomen near the stomach. A blow to this area is painful and the cause of the feeling called "getting the wind knocked out of you" and is prevalent in media.
The trick "A sphincter says what" is a juvenile taunt that tricks a person into calling themselves a sphincter when they respond, "what?"
Black Hat resolves the solar plexus joke with a punch to Cueball in the solar plexus as opposed to a normal punch(line).
The title text mentions truthfully that it hurts to be hit there.
|
|
65
|
February 17, 2006
|
Banter
| null |
This was an actual mock conversation between me and a friend at TGIF. The waitress walked up around panel 5 and was somewhat put off.
|
:[Two Cueball like characters have a discussion. They are drawn the same in all eight panels.]
:Guy: Man, she's hot
:Friend: Whatever, you are so gay.
:Guy: C'mon, everyone knows you're the gay one.
:Friend: Hey, your mom's pretty masculine, but sleeping with her doesn't make me gay.
:Guy: Fag.
:Friend: Ass pirate.
:Guy: Fudge packer
:Friend: Cock jockey
:Guy: Cum dumpster.
:[Beat panel.]
:Guy: Okay, seriously, are you gay? Because if you've been holding out on me, we're missing out.
:Friend: No, it's cool.
:Guy: OK, me neither.
:[Beat panel.]
:[Beat panel.]
|
Two guys are trash-talking each other with homophobic comments and Maternal insult|"your mom" jokes. It goes somewhat astray and becomes awkward when the first guy makes a pass at the second guy and is rejected. Part of the element of the humor in this comic stems from a common assertion that the most homophobic of men are the most likely to be a closeted homosexual. Another element is the incredible awkwardness of the end conversation, with both characters standing awkwardly for the last 2 panels.
Faggot (slang)|Fag, ass pirate, fudge packer, and List of LGBT slang terms|cock jockey are all insults for a homosexual man, while cum dumpster can apply to both men and women. These terms were not generally considered more than mildly offensive by most of the public at the time this comic was posted. The cultural mainstream is now typically much more critical of this type of language, and this comic would likely be heavily criticized if it were published today.
In the title text, he says he mock-held this conversation with a friend in a T.G.I. Friday's|TGIF restaurant, indicating how awkward this would be in real life. Even the waiter, a bystander, is put off by it.
|
|
66
|
February 20, 2006
|
Abusive Astronomy
| null |
Medium: Pencil on paper
|
:Identifying star clusters:
:[Image of a star cluster.]
:This is the <u>Pleiades</u>, asshole.
:Orion's Belt:
:[Image of Orion's Belt.]
:Only a moron couldn't find it.
:This is the <u>Big</u> <u>Dipper</u>:
:[Image of the Big Dipper.]
:What the hell is <u>wrong</u> with you?
|
An asterism is a pattern of stars that forms some sort of perceived shape in the night sky. Some of these are patterns used to name regions of the sky, as constellations. Modern astronomy organizes the sky into 88 constellations, but different cultures saw different patterns in the same night sky, going back at least as far as the Babylonians, and there are many other patterns and grouping of stars. The Pleiades (or Subaru), Orion's belt, and the Big Dipper are among the most common asterisms that we recognize today and are among the first taught to people with an interest in astronomy. The Pleiades is an open star cluster in the constellation of Taurus. It is a group of stars that formed from the same nebula and are moving together. Orion's belt comprises three stars that appear close in the sky, but are in fact at great distance from each other. The Big Dipper is part of the constellation Ursa Major. It can be used to help find the north pole star Polaris, which is an aid to night-time navigation.
During planetarium tours, the tour guide will point out popular constellations and stars; sometimes they will ask a question to get the audience involved in the presentation. Usually these people are big on showing the wonder of the galaxy and are all smiles, but people have bad days. The comic is presenting an especially aggressive way of introducing the night sky.
When astronomers in the Northern Hemisphere are showing stars to people, there will frequently be someone who points to the Pleiades and says, "There's the Big Dipper!" (both appear as a trapezium of stars, with a handle, though the Pleiades is much smaller). This gets frustrating about the 100th time that you encounter this error. So, this comic could show someone releasing their frustration on the misinformed public by pointing out that what they just pointed at is actually the Pleiades, then, pointing out that you can always locate the Pleiades by following the line of the stars in the belt of Orion, then, pointing out the REAL Big Dipper.
In the title text, Randall explains that he drew this comic as a line drawing on white paper, using only a pencil. The image was later inverted for publication.
|
|
67
|
February 22, 2006
|
Nerd Girls
| null |
Nothing personal, high schoolers.
|
:[Girl with shoulder length brown hair and glasses, wearing a shirt which says "Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons".]
:Girl: At least, thanks to your constant fawning, we have an '''excuse''' for our social ineptness. What's '''yours'''?
|
The stereotypical nerd is socially inept and has an obsession with a non-mainstream hobby such as Dungeons and Dragons. Nerd males are also typically represented as treating ''all'' women (including female nerds) with reverence and awkward fawning due to their supposed inexperience and lack of female company in comparison to other males. In the comic, the nerd girl uses this as an excuse for her social ineptitude.
The T-shirt the girl is wearing contains the text "Do not meddle in the affairs of Dragons," which is an [https://www.google.com/search?q
|
|
68
|
February 24, 2006
|
Five Thirty
| null |
The 8th panel is my favorite
|
:
|
At 5:30 AM, one's sleep-deprived or prematurely-roused mind sometimes comes up with things that seem like nonsense later.
None of the twelve panels in this comic seem to have any correlation with one another, each one being its own "story," and none of them really make any sense. It is unknown whether Randall really wrote this comic while awake at 5:30 in the morning, or if he wrote it while completely alert and is trying to pass off his rejected ideas by saying what one's mind may experience when trying to process information at an hour when the person is not used to being awake.
|
|
69
|
February 27, 2006
|
Pillow Talk
| null |
Maybe I should've tried Wexler?
|
:Cueball: Staring at the ceiling, she asked me what I was thinking about.
:Cueball: I should have made something up.
:Cueball: The Bellman-Ford algorithm makes terrible pillow talk.
|
The Bellman Ford|Bellman-Ford algorithm is an algorithm that calculates the shortest path(s) through a weighted digraph or collection of connected nodes or vertices. The "Wexler" in the title text refers to Wexler's algorithm, which is used to deal with the inverse problem of electrical impedance tomography, or simply stated: the electrical conductivity of an (inhomogenous) object.
Both of these would make terrible pillow talk. Pillow talk is the conversation made by lovers after they have had sex, and is usually relaxed and intimate instead of technical.
|
|
70
|
March 1, 2006
|
Guitar Hero
| null |
And then do it again in a moment now that they're out of Star Power.
|
:[On a stage, Megan is in the background as a singer holding a microphone. In the center is Hairy with an electric guitar. The catwalk has bumps to resemble the tracks of Guitar Hero.]
:[Caption above the stage]:
:When I'm in a rock band, I'm gonna do a cool, mellow song. Then in the middle I'll stop, announce "this part is just to be an asshole to people playing Guitar Hero," and then flail wildly on the strings for 30 seconds.
|
''Guitar Hero'' is a series of video games (originally a single game) distributed by Activision. In the game, players simulate playing the guitar on famous guitar songs using a plastic guitar-shaped controller with five color-coded buttons on the neck representing guitar frets and a rocker bar on the body simulating a strumming motion. The game now includes other instruments such as drums and vocals, although not at the time this comic was published.
While the player plays the game, an animated band is shown on the upper half of the screen, and an extended guitar neck is shown vertically on the bottom half of the screen with horizontal frets, often called the "note highway." As the song progresses, coloured markers or "gems" indicating notes travel down the screen in time with the music; the note colours and positions match the five fret keys on the guitar controller. Once the notes reach the bottom, the player must play the indicated notes by holding down the correct fret buttons and hitting the strumming bar in order to score points. The image in the comic is similar to what is shown when playing ''Guitar Hero''.
In this comic, Randall Munroe|Randall suggests that, were he in a real rock band, he would perform a mellow song, but intentionally put a complicated guitar solo in, not for musical value, but solely to antagonize ''Guitar Hero'' players with an impossible solo. As the comic suggests, a random flailing would likely make for a very difficult passage to play in ''Guitar Hero''. This is highlighted by the previous statement that the song would otherwise be mellow, lulling the player into a false sense that the song was easy to play and relaxing. Even worse for Guitar Hero players, if there was anyone who is good enough to play the solo, they would still have no fun playing the song if it is otherwise very mellow.
Probably, the "impossible solo" proposed here would turn useless, as there are some songs where the artist actually flails the guitar, and the developers translated that in gameplay as a bonus where the players can freely spam their controller/guitar for extra points, similar to the spinner circle in ''osu!''.
The title text refers to a mechanic in Guitar Hero called "Star Power." Normally, when a player misses too many notes in a short time, their character is booed off the stage, and they have to restart. Using Star Power temporarily boosts the score from each note, so the player can clear a difficult section of the song even if they haven't hit most of the notes. So, when faced with Randall's impossible guitar solo, most players will immediately use Star Power to survive it. However, it takes time to build up Star Power, and it all gets expended at once, so if the song has a second stretch of wild flailing, the player won't be able to escape and will fail. (Also note that in ''Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock'' and many other titles of the series, a full meter of Star Power lasts for eight measures, so as long as the song is mildly fast (80BPM would more than suffice for a 4/4 or 12/8 time signature), 30 seconds would be enough already.)
|
|
71
|
March 3, 2006
|
In the Trees
| null |
It was tricky.
|
:[Cueball is standing in a forest.]
:Cueball: We made it so far together but then I lost you in the trees.
:[A closer view of Cueball.]
:Cueball: Finally.
|
This comic focuses on dark humor. In the first panel, the viewer is led to believe that it is a comic lamenting on the loss of love, as it states, "We made it so far together, but then I lost you in the trees." However, when we read the second panel ("Finally"), it becomes clear that the joke is that the loss of this "love" is what he had been hoping for all along. The supposed pain that came from such losing a long relationship came not from lamenting the loss of something he put so much effort into, but instead into the fact that it took so long to get there. The title text just furthers this idea.
The expression could at first be interpreted as metaphorical, but from the later panels and the background, it may be a literal loss in a forest.
There is a similar twist in comics 334: Wasteland and 1042: Never.
|
|
72
|
March 6, 2006
|
Classhole
| null |
A term coined by my friend Beth
|
:Cueball: How did you spend your morning?
:Black Hat: Feeding rocks to children in the park.
:Cueball: Your sociopathic abuse of random strangers staggers me.
:Black Hat: I aspire to have more creativity than the common asshole.
:Black Hat: I'm more of a <u>classy</u> asshole -- A class-hole, if you will. For example, I like poking tiny holes in styrofoam noodle cups at the grocery store --
:Black Hat: Thanks to me, someone gets surprise boiling water in the lap.
:Cueball: I am in awe.
:Black Hat: It's even more fun to do to condoms.
|
The subject of this comic is Black Hat himself. He admits to being an asshole, a profanity that describes someone who does things that antagonize, irritate, or anger others (either intentionally or incidentally). While a common example might be someone who weaves in and out of traffic, or someone who parks across two parking spaces, Black Hat is "more creative." This also suggests that, while most people described as assholes are either ignorant or selfish, Black Hat seems to intentionally behave this way strictly to be an asshole and not for any self-benefit. He claims to be a "classy asshole," or as he coins the portmanteau, a "class-hole." He seems to equate creativity with class, although that seems like a leap. In any event, this is another early Black Hat strip that, for the first time, explicitly sets out that he goes out of his way to wreak havoc.
Among his "pranks," he suggests poking holes in grocery noodle cups. These are pre-packaged cups filled with dried noodles and dried soup mix (either in a separate pouch, or loose in the cup) to which one adds boiling water, which both cooks the pasta and dissolves the soup mix to become the soup/broth. By poking holes in the cup, Black Hat ensures that someone pouring boiling water in the cup would have it leak all over them, causing them great surprise and pain.{{citation needed}}
He also suggests poking holes in condoms, which could cause even more serious consequences. This form of Reproductive coercion#Birth control sabotage|contraceptive sabotage is a way to cause unintended pregnancy or sexually transmitted disease infection. Sabotage may be by someone acting maliciously at random (such as poking holes at the store pre-purchase) or by one of the participants to attempt to cause a pregnancy when the other partner does not want it, often occurring as part of reproductive abuse.<ref name
|
|
73
|
March 10, 2006
|
Zeppelin
| null |
A tribute to Buttercup Festival
|
:Cueball: What time is it?
:[Picture of a Zeppelin style watch, indicating the time about 12:13 o'clock.]
:[Cueballs look up at the sky.]
:[A huge Zeppelin is visible in the sky.]
|
A zeppelin is a type of rigid dirigible aircraft, used in the early part of the 20th century for commercial airline traffic. They were well known for being the most luxurious, comfortable air travel of the time. The Hindenburg disaster, as well as World War II, led to the end of their use as commercial airliners. Also associated with the Zeppelin name is a particular design of wristwatches,[http://www.pointtec.de/zeppelin/] notable for having the word "ZEPPELIN" (with no exclamation point) at the top of the dial, at or under where the number 12 would be. In this comic, Randall Munroe|Randall implies that, since the hour hand of the watch is pointing to the word "ZEPPELIN!," it is time for a zeppelin to appear in the sky.
The joke was continued in 288: Elevator, in which replacing a numeral with "ZEPPELIN!" also invoked the appearance of a lighter-than-air airship.
The title text refers to the webcomic Buttercup Festival, which, at the time of this comic, was defunct. It was later revived by the author then defuncted again in 2015 and revived, again, in 2019. As of 18/07/20, the comic is running its third series. It is a tribute to Buttercup festival in the way it interprets things in the world naïvely and literally to achieve humor, in a simple yet effective and uncontrived way.
|
|
74
|
March 10, 2006
|
Su Doku
| null |
This one is from the Red Belt collection, of 'medium' difficulty
|
:[A square divided into 2×2 squares, the top-right one has an 1 in it, the bottom-right one has a 0, the two left ones are empty.]
:Binary Su Doku
|
Sudoku|Su Doku (Japanese for "single number," and now usually written as "sudoku") is a type of number puzzle, in which the player must place digits in a matrix field in the correct arrangement, such that they do not repeat within given domains. The most common arrangement is a 9×9 grid subdivided into nine 3×3 grids, into which the nine non-zero digits of the normal decimal counting system must be inserted, with no digit being allowed to appear twice in a horizontal or vertical row or in each individual 3×3 grid. The number and combination of pre-filled squares determines the difficulty of the puzzle.
However, Randall Munroe|Randall presents a 2x2 binary sudoku puzzle which isn't subdivided. The joke is that the binary system has only two digits (0 and 1), and as a result binary sudoku puzzles would be trivially easy and thus pointless. The puzzle in the comic would be completed by filling 0 in the top-left and 1 in the bottom-left empty box. The only other possible grid would have the 0s and 1s swapped. This fulfills the criterion of having no repeated digits in any row, column or cell.
The title text appears to reference a series of published sudoku puzzle books called "Martial Arts Sudoku". The difficulty of each book is denoted by a martial arts belt color, with each color representing a certain skill level. A red belt is a rather high level, second only to the black belt. When applied to binary sudokus, a sudoku with one number given would be the most difficult one (though still trivial) and thus be a black belt. This sudoku has two numbers given, hence the medium red belt level.
|
|
75
|
March 13, 2006
|
Curse Levels
| null |
I find so much fun in language.
|
:My hobby: mixing curse levels
:Cueball: What a gosh-darned cunt.
{{
|
This is the fourth comic in the :Category:My Hobby|My Hobby series. Curse words (aka: swear words/profanities) are disrespectful words that are typically impolite to use in public. As noted in the strip, there are "levels" of curse words ranging from those "mild" words that are more acceptable to use, to those "severe" words that are considered very impolite (the milder curse words can be used on network television in the US, for example, while severe ones can not). Although they cannot be exactly defined, they roughly fit into "safe" (heck, gosh, dang, etc.), "mild" (d*mn, s**t, h*ll and so forth) and "severe" (those that refer to more suggestive things than the others, as well as racial slurs and such). One usually uses milder cursing ("safe") because either they personally don't feel comfortable using the more severe words, or because it would not be appropriate in the context (such as on network television, in the presence of children, etc). Thus, mixing mild and severe curses in one usage does not usually occur, as the effect achieved by keeping the one curse word mild is negated by using another that is severe.
In a mild curse, "gosh-darned" is typically used as a minced oath of "God-damned" when the latter would be inappropriate. This is mixed with "cunt" — a vulgar term for the female genitalia, considered the most offensive swear word in many English-speaking countries.
|
|
76
|
March 15, 2006
|
Familiar
| null |
:(
|
:[Hairy and Megan are talking]
:Megan: I worry that I'm just with you because it's familiar. Of course no one else compares. I've known you for so long that I'd have to spend years with someone to build up this kind of connection and I daren't let you go of you long enough to let that happen.
:Megan: But I guess this is really all I can ask for. I'm happy with you; I should stop worrying.
:[Megan takes Hairy's hand.]
:Hairy: This is probably a bad time to bring this up, but I don't actually like you.
|
Megan tells her boyfriend (Hairy) her reservations about their relationship: she's happy with him, she thinks he doesn't compare to anyone else, and they have a strong connection built up over the course of years, but she's worried that all this is just because they've been dating so long that she hasn't had the opportunity to experience potentially better relationships. However, she recognizes that what she has should be enough, and resolves to stop worrying. Hairy responds to this by saying that he doesn't even like her, recognizing that it's relatively poor timing to say so after her expression of love (albeit a rather ambivalent one).
The title text is a sad-face emoticon, representing either Megan's sadness about his dislike of her, his (possibly disingenuous) sympathy for her, or the narrator's recognition that he's depicted a sad situation.
|
|
77
|
March 17, 2006
|
Bored with the Internet
| null |
I used to do this all the time.
|
:[Black Hat and Not-Hairy are talking in a room with a computer on.]
:Not-Hairy: I feel like I'm wasting my life on the internet. Let's walk around the world.
:Black Hat: Sounds good.
:[The two men are shown walking through trees.]
:[The two men are shown walking on flat stretch, with mountains in the distance.]
:[The two men are shown in a magnificent canyon. They stand, silently looking at the scene.]
:Not-Hairy: And yet all I can think is, "This will make for a great LiveJournal entry."
|
A character who has hair (not to be confused with Hairy) suggests to Black Hat that he is wasting his life on the Internet, and they should go explore the world. They appear to walk a great distance, through what appears to be a swamp or perhaps a forest in winter, across a plain, and down to a river valley. Despite traveling so far and through such varied landscapes, in the last panel, the character with hair admits that all he can think about is what a great LiveJournal post their trip would make. It appears that the plan to get the Internet off their mind has failed.
LiveJournal is a website on which users can make accounts and, effectively, blog, although the site is designed around the premise that the blogs ought to be used as personal journals, with the ability to privatize the journal or only let certain friends see certain entries. LiveJournal was an early social network and an early blog platform and was a good way for people to let others know what was going on in their lives. Randall presented his comics on LiveJournal before using [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com]. Today, LiveJournal still exists, but its popularity has plummeted.
The title text suggests that Randall Munroe|Randall has overcome a tendency to think about how he will document what he has been doing, rather than concentrate on the thing itself.
|
|
78
|
March 20, 2006
|
Garfield
| null |
The use of the 'Garfield' character for the purposes of this parody qualifies as fair use under the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. sec. 107. See Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music (92-1292), 510 U.S. 569
|
:I want to see something unexpected in comics. Just one strip could make up for it all.
:[Garfield is standing on hind legs facing and looking directly at the camera. But is off-center in the frame, about 1/3 from the left, rotated very slightly clockwise.]
:[Zoom in on Garfield, still to the left, now rotated slightly counterclockwise.]
:[Zoom in again on Garfield, now the frame clips off the left side of his face.]
:Garfield thought bubble: The world is burning.
:[Final zoom in, the frame is ripped like a page, offset, and Garfield's eyes are half closed on the right half.]
:Garfield thought bubble: Run.
:Jim Davis, throw off your commercial shackles. Challenge us. Go out in a blaze of Dadaist glory. There is still time.
|
The newspaper comic strip Garfield, which features an orange cat as the main character, has increasingly been known for repetitive, quality-lacking strips. In the past, this was because the creator, Jim Davis (cartoonist)|Jim Davis, prefers to explore the same subjects he is comfortable with but in different ways — or from a less charitable view, because the strip is intended for a wide audience and thus becomes homogenized and inoffensive by nature. This attitude has only become more pronounced in the 21st century, as the aging Davis becomes less and less interested in the franchise. Regardless of the reason, these strips are now Ghostwriter|ghost written with little input from Davis and rarely explore the unconventional. The comic is challenging Davis to do something unexpected and surprise us all. The comic also accuses Davis of being a "sellout", sticking to bourgeois/commercial logic, something that Dadaist artists challenged.
Dadaism was an artistic movement in the early 20th century marked primarily by chaos, irrationality, and surrealism. Some of the artists believed that the bourgeois logic made human beings unhappy and therefore led to war. Randall Munroe|Randall leads by example by featuring a strip that parodies the style of Garfield, with multiple colors (xkcd usually contains only black and white, with some few containing an additional color like red or yellow) and a character that is not a stick figure breaking the normal xkcd pattern. Another Dadaist aspect is the fact that while Garfield is smiling, he is communicating something that could be considered terrifying.
The title text explains that xkcd is exercising legal use of Davis's intellectual property, namely the title character of his comic. The Supreme Court case mentioned, ''Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music'', confirmed that parody is legal even when there is commercial gain as a result, and also referenced the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. § 107, for the same reason. While this is normally understood by most anyone who questions such matters, Randall includes it as a reference to the lessening of strict copyright law, which many comics also mention, usually in the context of free software and those who promote it, like in the comics featuring Richard Stallman.
|
|
79
|
March 22, 2006
|
Iambic Pentameter
| null |
Of course, you don't wanna limit yourself to the strict forms of the meter. That could get pretty difficult.
|
:[Two identical Cueballs are having a conversation. The latter is identified as Cueball, since he represents Randall who has the Hobby.]
:Friend: What time can you pick Michael up?
:Cueball: Well, I can meet the plane at ten of six.
:Friend: Do you know where to find him?
:Cueball: I'll meet him at the stairs before the gate.
:[Below the two Cueballs are the following text:]
:My hobby: answering casual questions in iambic pentameter.
|
In this part of the :Category:My Hobby|My Hobby series, the hobby is responding to casual questions using iambic pentameter. Iambic pentameter is a form of poetic verse defined by the number of syllables per line. In this form, a line contains exactly five (penta means five in Greek) "Iamb (foot)|iambs" per line. An iamb is a unit of two syllables with the stress falling on the second. The actual breakup of the words is unimportant; the definition is based solely on the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. One line of strict iambic pentameter will have ten syllables, with the stress falling on the second, fourth, sixth, eighth, and last.
In this comic, Cueball (i.e. Randall - the one with the hobby) is replying to his friend's questions. (The friend also looks like Cueball, but are here differentiated by who has the hobby.) Cueball's responses are each one line of iambic pentameter, just visually broken into two lines for space reasons. They read (adding the emphasis):
:"Well, '''I''' can '''meet''' the '''plane''' at '''ten''' of '''six'''" and
:"I'll '''meet''' him '''at''' the '''stairs''' be'''fore''' the '''gate'''"<div>
with a sort of bouncing rhythm.
Shakespeare was one of the most famed users of iambic pentameter in his plays. This is the "strict form" of iambic pentameter. In practice, poets often strayed from the strict count of iambs as the image text suggests. Wikipedia offers two Shakespearian examples being "Now is the winter of our discontent," in which the first iamb is reversed ("Now" is stressed rather than "is"), and "To be or not to be, that is the question," which adds an extra unstressed syllable at the end. As the comic suggests in the title text, without such exceptions, it can be very difficult to stick to strict iambic pentameter for every sentence.
|
|
80
|
March 24, 2006
|
My Other Car
| null |
It's much better than the other one.
|
:[The back of a blue Mitsubishi with a spoiler is shown.]
:Bumper sticker: This '''<big>IS</big>''' my other car.
|
This comic refers to a popular form of bumper sticker that follows the template "my other car is a ____." Sometimes the blank is a fancy vehicle like a Porsche or a Ferrari; sometimes it's related to the person's job (e.g. "My other car is a fire truck"); sometimes it's an even more expensive form of transportation like a "yacht" or "private jet," or even something joking or in fiction (like a "TARDIS").
The premise was to jokingly imply that someone driving in a less fancy vehicle was wealthier than they looked, as they could afford a fancy car (they simply chose to drive the clunker that day). The designer of the first stickers might even have intended them for serious use by wealthy drivers. The form of sticker ultimately became so well known that the phrase entered the pop-culture lexicon.
Due to their popularity, these stickers also have been parodied in various ways, like the one Randall Munroe|Randall has invented here. Randall's sticker is a more "honest" sticker that admits "this IS my other car;" in other words, this is the nicer of the two cars.
This sticker could probably be used on an expensive car to mirror the traditional sticker's use on a cheaper car. However, the car in the strip is a Mitsubishi, which is not a particularly expensive brand, though the presence of a spoiler indicates it may be one of the top-range models, or at least has had a little extra paid for some sports 'extras'. Thus it appears that Randall is using the sticker for contrasting purposes: while others would drive a modest car but joke that they have a really nice one at home, Randall's car is the one you see, and, as he noted in the title text, his other one is much worse than this one.
It's also possible that this is a play on meta-levels; by definition, the car that you're driving can't be your other car, as it's your car you're driving now. Your other car is the one sitting at home.
|
|
81
|
March 27, 2006
|
Attention, shopper
| null |
There's a red convertible outside my building with the license plate 'DADS MNY'.
|
:[Black Hat is holding a golf club and speaking into a P.A. system.]
:Black Hat: Attention,
:Black Hat: To the owner of a Dodge Viper SRT-10 with license plate "MYTOY," your lights are on and your windshield was just smashed with a golf club.
|
A common trope (often referenced in TV and film) is a loudspeaker announcement in which a store employee (or anyone else in charge somewhere where people gather, like church or a school) announces that a certain color and model of car has its lights on, or is blocking another car, or is about to be towed, or similar. A license plate is sometimes included to allow the owner to identify that it is specifically their car that is involved.
In this case, Black Hat is up to his old ways as, in addition to announcing that an SRT-10 has its lights on, he also announces that it has had its windshield smashed with a golf club. Black Hat is, of course, holding a golf club, frustrated at the owner’s revolting arrogance. The lights are probably on because the attack triggered the car's alarm system.
The Dodge Viper SRT-10 was a version of the Dodge Viper available on the third and fourth generations of Viper from 2003-2010. It was a very expensive sports car.
The two license plates in the comic are personalized license plates. The one in the comic-proper is clearly "My Toy"; the plate in the title text is most likely "Dad's Money," which Randall Munroe|Randall suggests is a real plate on a car outside his building, suggesting that the driver's father paid for the car, bragging about how rich their family is.
|
End of preview. Expand
in Data Studio
Dataset Card for Explain XKCD
Dataset Summary
An import of the Explain XKCD wiki (up to March 30, 2024), containing explanations for 2668 xkcd comics.
| Field | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
number |
string | The xkcd comic’s sequential number (e.g. "3", "1000"). |
date |
string | Publication date of the comic, in “Month Day, Year” format (e.g. "September 30, 2005"). |
title |
string | The displayed title of the comic (e.g. "Island (sketch)"). |
before |
string | Any original or archived title/caption metadata, typically a MediaWiki-style link or HTML snippet pointing back to the source (e.g. the LiveJournal archive). |
image |
string | Filename of the comic image (e.g. "island_color.jpg") in the images/. |
titletext |
string | The “alt” or tooltip text that appears when you hover over the comic on xkcd’s site. |
transcript |
string | A plain-text transcript of the comic panels and dialogue. |
explanation |
string | A detailed explanation of the joke or references in the comic, suitable for the “Explain xkcd” format. |
NOTE: original image filenames in xkcd included spaces, in this dataset these were replaced with underscores.
Licensing Information
Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Explain xkcd: It’s ’cause you’re dumb. (2025). Main Page. Fan-maintained wiki. Retrieved May 19, 2025, from https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License (CC BY-NC 2.5)
xkcd: License Page. Retrieved Retrieved May 19, 2025, from https://xkcd.com/license.html
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY 4.0)
This work
Citation Information
@misc{dchichkov_explainxkcd_2025,
author = {Chichkov, Dmitry},
title = {{Explain XKCD Dataset}},
year = {2024},
howpublished = {\url{https://huggingface.co/datasets/dchichkov/explainxkcd}},
note = {Fan-curated import of the Explain XKCD wiki up to March 30, 2024}
}
### Contributions
Thanks to [@dchichkov](https://github.com/dchichkov) for adding this dataset.
- Downloads last month
- 197