3236: Border Message

Border Message

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Title text: Thanks to differences in logging regulations, the messages actually turned out to be visible from the air.

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Explanation

This is one of 67 incomplete explanations: This page was created by a bored legislator. Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

Quite a lot of US states, districts, and so on have very long, straight borders, in some cases due to lacking obvious geographic features which might otherwise form natural boundaries, or divisions established by customary, pre-survey, usage. This may well be quite boring for boundary legislators, having to just draw long straight lines. In this comic though, legislators who were negotiating the boundary between two geographic areas ("Southlake" and "East Valley") livened up the normally boring process by arranging for the boundary to spell out a message when viewed on a map. It's unknown what kind of areas (municipal regions, counties, etc.) are involved here. The boundary definition includes multiple areas — such as the bottom of the W, the interior of the "O"s and other letters with "holes", the apostrophe and so on — that are either exclaves (probably of the northern territory, that are surrounded by the southern one, in most cases) or (unlabeled) enclaved territories in their own right that are associated with no other disconnected area (possibly regarded as terra nullius). This would be very inconvenient for both tourists and locals, since they would have to constantly consult the map if they want to know whether they are in East Valley or Southlake. This would mean that, artistically (or ironically) enough, the message with a nice positive saying would almost certainly annoy people, defeating the purpose.

The title text implies that the area around the border is forested. Due to the different logging regulations in the two areas, the densities or types of trees on each side of the border are so different that one can see the border, and hence the messages, when looking down on the land. What logging would happen in the 'no man's land' between the letters is unclear (possibly none?), but evidently is sufficiently different to make these visible.

This comic may have been inspired by gerrymandering: defining voting districts to favor a particular group. This often results in districts with very unusual shapes. The comic was published on the day after Virginia voters passed a referendum approving redistricting that favored the Democratic Party. See also the Belgium-Netherlands border, which has been chaotic in places. This comic also happens to have been published on Earth Day.

Transcript

This is one of 43 incomplete transcripts: Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

[A section of a map showing the border between two geographic areas, East Valley and Southlake (marked on the map). The border is shown as a dotted line, and it spells out a message, followed by a small diagonal part:]

WE HOPE YOU'RE ENJOYING THIS MAP

[Caption below comic:]

When local legislators get bored

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Discussion

Wow, I got here early. 47.152.141.142 21:11, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

*salutations.* Caliban (talk) 21:39, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

The (sort of) Belgian village of Baarle-Hertog has numerous bizarre exclaves with neighbouring Netherlands, almost as complex as the borders in the cartoon. Some of the borders even pass through houses. https://maps.app.goo.gl/M5duocjEkJRQKedEA Martin (talk) 22:22, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

Baarle is divided into two, with ~-Nassau being Dutch (the Dutch royal family is Oranje-Nassau) and ~-Hertog is Belgian. Note that Baarle is a 2km² area with an extremely chaotic border, but that otherwise the Dutch-Belgian border is pretty normal relative to other European borders. IIVQ (talk) 05:15, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

European states/counties/jurisdictions were often complex and non-contiguous with many enclaves and exclaves. Many of these complex situations have disappeared (e.g. in France through the creation of departements in 1790); but some persisted or still remain. See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclaves_of_West_Berlin_in_East_Germany 62.112.240.32 12:50, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

there's no need to look all the way to Europe, although I was fascinated by "border corpse(Dutch: grenslijk)" stories. One example is the Four Corners Monument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Corners_Monument which is administered by Navajo Nation(!) and also serves as a border for Ute Mountain Ute Indian Reservation.Cuvtixo (talk) 19:26, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

That's the exact opposite of a complex border though: it's just a meeting of four perfectly straight lines. Martin (talk) 22:41, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

What is it with the Belgians and strange borders? Their border with Germany near Monschau is also a mess of exclaves. --88.97.176.34 22:00, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

SMBC once had a similar idea to stop Gerrymandering: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2013-07-12 90.146.31.117 23:02, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

Gerrymandering was not my first thought when I saw this comic, maybe that part should be removed from the description? I don't see any real way that it connects to gerrymandering besides the fact that it talks about borders. Qoiuoiuoiu (talk) 01:56, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Maybe it was added after the vague link to that SMBC comic was found? 110.145.224.178 03:22, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

For what it's worth, the comment about gerrymandering was added in the very first text to be put on that page (21:09, 22 April 2026). It's not merely because of borders; it's because of "borders that have been made extremely convoluted for artificial reasons unrelated to the factors that usually define such boundaries, such as geographical features, roads, latitude/longitude, or regular divisions". BunsenH (talk) 03:38, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Even as a non-USian, the recent gerrymandering efforts immediately seemed like an obvious prompt for the idea of the comic to me, even if it doesn't specifically reference it. 82.13.184.33 08:29, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

I put it in my original explanation, before the comment (indeed, before any comments). It only came to mind because Virginia was in the news that day, so reporters were talking about weirdly-shaped districts. Maybe it's just a coincidence, but Randall may have known that the vote was taking place that day when he came up with the comic. Barmar (talk) 14:25, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

I once spelled out words on openstreetmap. There were some hiking trails nearby from a data set that opened up and I could not put them all up in one session, so I spelled "To Do" (in the shape of the actual hiking trails) on Openstreetmap. IIVQ (talk) 05:15, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Is there a category for US State comics? There seems to be a lot of them, and a category might make sence. If there isn't perhaps someone could make one? -- GSLikesCats307 (talk) 09:26, 23 April 2026 (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

There's Category:US maps, but that is really more specifically of the 'whole' US (give or take contiguousness/fictionalisation), whereas this is more just 'a map', not even necessarily a (theoretical) subset of the US (though the names given to either side of the border do have a more Leftpondian feel, having that 'settler vibe' to them). 82.132.238.56 10:48, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Counting Exclaves

The W, O, P, O, ', R, O, A ,P all have clear exclaves. "A" and "R" seems to have two. However, it's unclear whether J and G are entirely exclaves, or possibly letters like "O" are doubly exclaved. If the answer to that is no, then that would mean there are 11 exclaves. Does anyone else agree with this assessment? Fephisto (talk) 17:43, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

No 'letter' is an exclave of Southlake, as I see it. The one "A" has two cut-out regions (let's assume these are all exclaves of East Valley, in leiu of any other info), the two "H"s have an exclave each, the "M" has an exclave, the two "N"s have an exclave each, three "O"s each have one exclave, both "P"s also, the "R" has two separate exclaves (topologically, like the "A") and the "W" has an exclave. Totalling fifteen (presumed) exclaves of East Valley within Southlake's nominal boundary, unless I've miscounted something (probably missed one, rather than repeated anything.

In addition, the apostrophe is (if not a totally different enclave/unincorporated area) an exclave of Southlake contained within East Valley's main contiguous area, so that's one more (of the opposite association).

Nowhere is doubly-exclaved (a.k.a. counter-exclaved). Although the pinch-points of some of the baseline-meeting letter shapes (the "O"-bottomed ones, like the "G" and "J", more so even than the "O"s themselves) are close, you can (terrain and obstructions allowing) walk into and around the "letter strokes" from Southlake without crossing over East Valley territory and back again.

What I find interesting is the slope of the writing (beyond the 'slope of the border' as it would be if it hadn't been made wiggly). I suspect that the way the natural border effectively would go from the character base on the left to higher up on the 'line height' to the right means that the ficticious map-definers (and, by extension, Randall) probably scrupulously ensured that this 'map doodling' made sure to not change the total area possessed by each side. By dipping the text-outlines down into Southlake, the area that might be considered nominally East Valley 'transfered' to Southlake as sections of letter-body seems to be balanced by the gain by East Valley by the baseline (at the right-hand end) dipping down into Southlake territory, until brought back up to the next 'level' section at the extreme right of the panel.

Might be worth analysing areas, comparing the scrawl-related possessions vs. what a more direct line would give to each. 82.132.238.117 20:13, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

I think the county names are a reference to 2548 FluffyGuardian70 (talk) 22:31, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

As well as South Valley being in 2548: Awful People (al9ng with mention of an unnamed lake/area near that lake), it is also in 2553: Incident Report.

I wouldn't exactly classify it as a 'reference' to either, myself, but clearly it's some placename that Randall has made up (or appropriated, perhaps memetically mutated, from a handy 'Somewhere County, Somestate' archetype that he knows) when he needs a nondescript placename of a certain type. Like I sometimes use "Hill Valley", as various other works do (could be an original oxymoron imagined up independently, in various cases, could be a knowing/unknowing reference to BttF... though for me I actually know a place with that name... though haven't looked into if that was possibly named as a fan reference, if the chronology of it isn't older yet). 82.132.238.117 00:30, 24 April 2026 (UTC)
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