44: Love

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Love

Original title: Wednesday's Drawing

Title text: This one makes me wince every time I think about it

Explanation

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.

Transcript

[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.]

Trivia

This used to be one of the footer comics featured in the bottom segment of xkcd.com.

This is also the last comic on grid paper.

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Discussion

This comic made me go OOF and wince. SilverMagpie (talk) 05:29, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

Now, that's epic. 172.70.98.153 22:01, 7 September 2021 (UTC)