1848: Glacial Erratic

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Glacial Erratic

Title text: "This will take a while, which sucks, because I'm already so busy chiseling out igneous intrusions from rock formations and watching Youtube loops of the Superman fault-sealing scene over and over."

Explanation

Ponytail and Megan are walking along when they come across an erratic rock (which differs from the surrounding geology and is brought there by glacial action). Not wishing to bow down to the forces of nature, Megan tries to take it back to its rightful place, obviously in vain.

Megan is annoyed with the glacier for just littering the place up with rocks. She wishes to put it back in place, just like picking up a piece of litter and putting it in the trash bin where it belongs.

The title text furthers the absurdity by suggesting that Megan is extra annoyed with having to clean up after the glacier, because it will take a long time (and as she put it "Fuck Glaciers"). The problem for Megan is that she is already using her time chiselling out igneous intrusions which is another type of rock formation caused by solidification of magma, which Megan also plans to undo. To soothe her mind she keeps watching the scene from the Superman film where Superman turns back time to prevent an earthquake and thus also create a fault-sealing by reversing the creation of the fault in the first place. He also prevents the destruction of the Hoover Dam and the death of Lois Lane, but it seems like this is not important to Megan. She is only interested in undoing what nature has already done, and if the Superman scene could be made real it would solve her problems.

This may be a play on words based on the word "erratic," as Megan's behavior could be described as such.

Megan's actions here are reminiscent of the ones carried out by Cueball in 1119: Undoing.

Transcript

[Ponytail and Megan walks up to a large rock, Ponytail points at it.]

Ponytail: That rock is a glacial erratic-A glacier broke it off from those hills and placed it here.

[In a frame-less panel they stand and watch the rock.]

Megan: What? And just left it here?

Megan: And everybody's okay with this?

[Megan tries to lift the rock with two hands.]

[Megan turns her back to the rock and tries to push it with all her might.]

Megan: Get...

Megan: ...back...

[Ponytail looks on as Megan again has turned around and tries to roll the boulder using both hands.]

Ponytail: Why ... Why are you doing that?

Megan: Because fuck glaciers!

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Discussion

Can 'Fuck glaciers' be a comment on the US withdrawing from the Paris Agreement? 162.158.222.106 06:57, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Agreed! 108.162.245.76 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Nooooooo, just some of US. The rest of us are trying to figure out how to withdraw from the US...Maybe a peaceful annexation by Canada for northern tier states --108.162.216.40 14:58, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

I think Megan just hates the glacier for littering, not for abandoning a child. 141.101.104.155 08:42, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Agree and removed the abandoning explanation. It makes no sense, as it is not a child of the glacier. --Kynde (talk) 12:25, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Louis Lane was still alive and conducting when Superman: The Movie came out in 1978. That should probably be fixed.108.162.216.250 12:29, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

The fault-sealing scene is before Louis "dies" and thus before Superman turns back time. In the scene, he flies in the fault, pushing up the land to fill the crevice created by the splitting of the land.Hax (talk) 00:27, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Yes! Seconded. 108.162.245.226 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Assuming rock is 2000 kg per cubic meter and the one drawn is one meter high, then that boulder weighs 1000 kg, and we can see it moves, which goes to show that stick people are VERY strong! Rotan (talk) 09:35, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Like stick people, the rock is two-dimensional. Since mass only increases with the square of the linear dimension in 2D, the rock might still be movable by a single person. That said, the force generated by what must clearly be one-dimensional muscles is harder to predict. 162.158.214.22 12:05, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

"Give me a place to stand and with a lever (or stick figure, whatever) I will move the whole world!" - Randall Munroe, ca. 2017 162.158.92.118 07:33, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

In addition to Paris agreement, glaciars are also quite topical because a crack in the Larsen C ice shelf is weeks away from breaking off a huge piece of Antarctica. See: Patel, Jugal K. A Crack in an Antarctic Ice Shelf Is 8 Miles From Creating an Iceberg the Size of Delaware. The New York Times. nyti.ms/2s5jZ5V. June 9, 2017. JohnHawkinson (talk) 05:23, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Who cares if this is the first comic since xyz including swear words? If such a thing is considered trivia then it would be equally important to note that this is first comic since abc having 5 pictures. I removed that part. Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 11:19, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

I guess there was someone at work not knowing what sarcsasm is. Removed it again... Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 06:50, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

I totally support your action. But the hell what is sarcsasm??? ;-) --Dgbrt (talk) 14:12, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

MMD xD Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 14:25, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Am I dumb? Or just an other typo: MMD? --Dgbrt (talk) 14:47, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Made My Day. Strange that this is not in the wiki (urban dictionary has it). At least for myself it's the most common meaning of that abbreviation, so I assumed.... Well... you know how flawed some assumptions are... Sorry, didn't mean to confuse you :) Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 06:49, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

Funny, you "made my day". But even on urban dictionary the Japanese "MikuMikuDance" is on top.--Dgbrt (talk) 11:07, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

well it has been a while since profanity was used in xkcd, thisseems to be the last instance of such??? Caliban (talk) 12:23, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Do we need an F word category? 172.68.174.192 (talk) 03:22, 3 January 2024 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

not that notable Caliban (talk) 12:23, 21 November 2024 (UTC)