100: Family Circus

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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Family Circus
This was my friend David's idea
Title text: This was my friend David's idea

Explanation[edit]

The Family Circus is a comic characterized by single-panel round comics with a caption below the comic. Jeffy is a character in Family Circus, and dotted lines representing his wanderings are a frequent theme of Family Circus comics. Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a mental illness that compels the sufferer to perform repetitive actions. Common symptoms include, but are not restricted to, excessive hand washing and repeated opening and closing of a door.

The comic depicts the character Jeffy as having Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and traces his movements over a period of time. The dotted line that depicts his movements returns frequently to the kitchen sink, presumably either to repeatedly wash his hands or to make sure that the faucet was turned off.

In the title text, Randall attributes this idea to the unknown friend David. He did the same in 42: Geico and 51: Malaria.

Transcript[edit]

[Picture shows a pathway winding through trees to a sink inside a house, out to some swings and back to the sink, out to a ball and back to the sink, then on into the house.]
Jeffy's ongoing struggle with obsessive-compulsive disorder


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Discussion

Is it more than Pointless (<<< No full stop either, just to be consistent) 108.162.249.205 13:42, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

In the real Family Circus, isn't it Billy who leaves those paths? 173.245.50.174 04:28, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

One of the defining features of OCD is the compulsion to keep track of things, e.g. which hand touched something, how many steps someone has taken... Tracking and memorizing one's own movements as depicted with the dotted line is a lesser-known but relatively common compulsion in OCD. Not sure whether that's part of the joke or not, though. 172.71.134.157 14:28, 18 September 2023 (UTC)