736: Cemetery

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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Cemetery
Three headstones down, I got a call from my mom and it went from bad to worse.
Title text: Three headstones down, I got a call from my mom and it went from bad to worse.

Explanation[edit]

Here, Cueball appears to be putting blame on someone who called him. This could be a result of...

...the person insisting on a font that was not sans-serif, but the results were typographically unappealing.
...the person having problems because he used a font that was not sans-serif.
...Cueball being "forced" to tell person who is wrong, due to him giving Cueball something that was in a font that was not the sans-serif font for which Cueball asked.

In any case, the onlookers seem horrified at this sight. Cueball is using a Bluetooth headset that allows one to speak without actually holding the cell phone. The problem is that, since the headset is a small object attached to the user's ear while the phone is out of sight, someone using a Bluetooth headset may give the impression that he is talking to himself, or again, to a person who happens to be in front of him (even if the "unintended recipient" is dead). With Cueball standing in front of a grave and saying "This is your fault", to onlookers he looks like he's talking to the person buried there. This prompts the onlookers to assume either that the buried person died from some bizarre font-related accident, or, even more worryingly, that Cueball got so angry about the person using the wrong font that he murdered them over it, and is now insisting that they'd left him no choice — making Cueball appear as a petty, deranged monster.

A sans-serif font is a font without serifs, small lines or strokes regularly attached to the end of a larger stroke in a letter or symbol. Common sans-serif fonts include Arial and Helvetica.

The title text suggests that Cueball is not on good terms with his mother, thus meriting a worse argument. The problem is that Cueball was in front of a different tombstone, thus giving the impression that he had an even worse grudge against his seemingly deceased mother, said argument creating an even worse impression of Cueball.

Transcript[edit]

[Cueball is in a cemetery, near a gravestone. Other people stand around staring. One Cueball-like figure stands to the right of him, and three figures, further away, look on as well. Of the three figures in the back, the tallest left-most Cueball-like figure covers his mouth with his hands. Megan is standing next to him, using her arm to block the view of a smaller figure to the right of her, presumably a child.]
Cueball: Frankly, you deserve this. You knew I wanted a sans-serif font, and you ignored me. So really, this is your fault.
[Caption below the panel]
I've discovered the worst place to wander while arguing on a hands-free headset.


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Discussion

I've set the incomplete tag because Cueball is simply arguing on a phone, there is no burial, and his mother is alive when she calls him. --Dgbrt (talk) 17:26, 25 August 2017 (UTC)


i thought the idea was that the onlookers would think cueball rose from the dead and was complaining about the font choice on the gravestone and saying that the person who carved the gravestone was at "fault" for their zombiefication... and i thought the title text thing was implying that they onlookers thought that cueball was talking to their dead mother since they likely would have said "hi mom" or "hello mother" or something like that when they answered the phone. i guess the comic can be interpreted 2 ways?