3193: Sailing Rigs

Sailing Rigs

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Title text: I wanted to make the world's fastest yawl, so I made the aft sail bigger, but apparently that means it's not a yawl anymore! It's a real ketch-22.

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Explanation

This is one of 61 incomplete explanations: This page was created by the birds flying in my kite. Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

This comic shows the side profiles of a variety of different sailing boat/ship rigs, starting with six real ones, but then moving into ones imagined by Randall, with varying levels of absurdity. The table below explains each type depicted.

The title text is a pun on Catch-22, which is a term (taken from the novel of the same name) for a situation where success is impossible because it requires meeting contradictory conditions. For example, in the novel, the term was used by military pilots who qualified to be released from combat duty, but were ordered to fly additional missions, and were told that disobeying those orders was grounds to have their releases revoked, which would require them to fly additional missions anyway.

Per the main panel, a ketch is similar to a yawl but has a larger aft sail, so increasing the aft sail of a yawl effectively turns the yawl into a ketch, effectively making it impossible to build a faster yawl. However, this is not technically true, as the distinction between a yawl and ketch is based on whether the aft sail is mounted forward or aft of the rudder post (although a yawl with a large aft sail may be difficult to control).^{[actual citation needed]}

The Rigs

Type	Image	Real?	Description	Explanation
Lateen		Yes	A single triangular sail.	The triangular sail is affixed to a long yard or crossbar, mounted at its middle to the top of the mast and angled to extend aft far above the mast and forward down nearly to the deck. The sail, its free corner secured near the stern, is capable of taking the wind on either side, and, by enabling the vessel to tack into the wind, the lateen immensely increases the potential of the sailing ship.
Bermuda rigged sloop		Yes	A front and rear triangular sail share a mast.	A sloop has one mast, typically with two sails mounted on the mast, one ahead and one behind.
Ketch		Yes	A sailboat with two masts, where the main mast is taller than the mizzen (or aft mast), and the mizzen is forward of the rudder post	Similar to a yawl
Gaff rigged sloop		Yes	A front triangular sail shares a mast with a rear quadrilateral sail.	A sloop is a sailboat with one mast, typically with two sails mounted on it — one ahead and one behind. A gaff rig is a sailing rig where one sail is four-sided and controlled by a spar (the gaff) at its top, which is hoisted at an angle to the mast.
Yawl		Yes	Two triangular sails share a front mast, and a much smaller aft mast holds a small aft sail.	A yawl is sailboat with two masts, where the main mast has two sails (one in front of the mast and one behind, known as fore-and-aft rigging, and the mizzen mast is mounted aft of the rudder post, leading the mizzen sail to typically be small. Similar to a ketch.
Schooner		Yes	A sailboat with two or more masts, where all have fore-and-aft rigging, and where the foremast is typically smaller than the main mast
Ketch-rigged gaff		No	Resembles a gaff, with the aft sail reduced and two triangular sails mounted above. The resulting shape resembles a vertical ketch.	The first fictional rig. It might be capable of functioning like a sloop, but its rigging would be more complicated and it is likely less efficient at catching the wind.
Kloop-rigged sketch		No	Four or five sails mounted in a nonsensical configuration, with elements from the schooner, ketch, and gaff	A mixture of the names of ketch and sloop, poking fun at the unfamiliar and odd-sounding names of some rigs. Adding to the absurdity, the kloop-rigged sketch is neither a sloop nor a ketch. However it is technically a sketch, as "sketch" can mean "drawing"
Bunkbed rig		No	A gaff-rigged sloop mounted on top of a second hull.	The name refers to a bunkbed, where one bed is mounted directly above another. Bunk-style sleeping arrangements are sometimes used on boats for reasons of space efficiency. It applies this idea to the whole ship, mounting one hull directly above another. While boats with multiple hulls do exist, these are always mounted side-by-side to guarantee stability. Mounting one hull above another would be a terrible idea, as the upper hull would be ineffective when raised above the water, the lower hull might become submerged and sink, and such a tall boat would be unstable, causing it to fall over. The comic is funny[citation needed] due to this absurdity, due to the boat's obviously extreme design being so far outside what someone would expect a boat to look like. Notably, this ship's rigging is mundane; the connection between hulls seems to be structural. It may be more accurate to refer to it as a bunkbed hull.
Flettner rig		Yes, though not typically called a rig	The rectangular outline of a cylinder with motion lines around it, indicating a Flettner rotor	A Flettner rotor is a right circular cylinder with disc end plates which is spun along its long axis. As air passes across it the Magnus effect causes an aerodynamic lift force to be generated in the direction perpendicular to both the long axis and the direction of airflow. In a rotor ship, the rotors stand vertically and lift is generated at right angles to the wind, to drive the ship forwards. Flettner rotors were previously mentioned in 3119
Oops, all spinnakers		No	Three masts each with a sail billowing in front	A spinnaker is a real type of sail, where a boat is propelled by a large sail directly pulled by the wind, similar in principle to a parachute. However, "Oops, all spinnakers" is not real, as spinnakers are only practical for smaller craft, and if multiple spinnakers are mounted in a row the earlier ones may disrupt the airflow to the later ones. It does not appear that there are any real boats propelled by more than one spinnaker. The name of the rig is a reference to the Cap'n Crunch cereal type that became a meme, Oops! All Berries, which has also been referenced in 2256 and 2719.
Keel rig		No	Three sails in a ketch arrangement, but mounted to the keel, which would typically put the sails underwater.	The book Heaven, by Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen, features an aquatic protagonist who is introduced as sailing a surface craft with underwater 'sails' (and above-water 'keel'), due to the switched nature of his usual environment.
Kite rig		Kind of	All sails are replaced by two groups of kites, each tied to the mast with their own independent line.	A kite rig is a real thing, where a kite is deployed from a boat or ship to catch the wind and pull the vessel along. This rigging is used in various types of vessel, most commonly kite surfing, but occasionally other vessels too, up to trials with cargo ships. However, the real kite riggings typically use one large kite optimised for catching the wind, rather than many small kites optimised for flying (as depicted) which would likely get tangled and not pull much on the ship.
Longsail rig		No	A Bermuda rigged sloop with the aft sail extending ~5 times as far back, well beyond the end of the hull.	While not technically impossible, such a long sail would likely be susceptible to damage from the wind, as well as potentially making it hard to control the boat. This design could be a reference to "long-tail bikes", a type of cargo bicycle useful for hauling heavy or voluminous charges at the cost of higher weight and reduced manoeuvrability.
Deckhand obliterator		No	All sails replaced by an anchor that swings from the mast on a chain.	Any deckhands (crew) on the deck could be knocked off or fatally hurt if the anchor passes through their space. While most captains would consider this counterproductive, it might be effective at its stated purpose. There is a risk that the anchor might damage the mast in a collision or get wrapped around it.
Offset rig		No	Gaff rigged sloop sails are mounted on a mast that is offset (forward) from the hull via an underwater extension of the keel.	The extreme mechanical advantage of the sail, potentially combined with the uneven weight, would make this rigging hard if not impossible to control. There are in fact sail configurations called offset rigs but they aren't like the one shown here.
Mastless rig		Kind of	A single sail is attached directly to the hull of the boat, without any mast to give it form.	As depicted, the sail would provide little to no useful propulsion, as it would not be high enough to effectively catch the wind, and would, in any case, flap unpredictably. However, ships do exist without masts, such as ships not powered by wind or, more rarely, inflatable sails (e.g. this concept), which use air, rather than a mast, for rigidity. While not intentional, it is conceivable that the drawing depicts an inflatable sail in its deflated state.
Unclassifiable chaos rig		Arguably	Includes elements of the schooner, yawl, lateen, and possibly others.	While this specific rig is almost certainly fictional, there are many ways to rig a ship, some of which are difficult to classify.

Transcript

[The comic shows five rows of silhouettes of different sail boats as seen from the side. In total 18 different boats are shown, three rows with four each and three in each of the two bottom rows. Each boat has a different sailing rig. All boats are oriented to the left of the comic, and beneath each boat there is a label. At the top of the panel there is a large heading:]

Common Sailing Rigs

[Here follows a list of the 18 boats with a description and then their label:]

[A single triangular sail.]

Lateen

[A front and rear triangular sail share a mast.]

Bermuda rigged sloop

[Two triangular sails as above, with an additional triangular sail on a second rear mast.]

Ketch

[Front triangular sail shares mast with rear quadrilateral sail.]

Gaff rigged sloop

[Two triangular sails share front mast and a much smaller aft mast holds a small aft.]

Yawl

[Two triangular front sails share forward mast with quadrilateral center sail. An aft mast supports a quadrilateral aft sail.]

Schooner

[Resembles a gaff, with the aft sail reduced and two triangular sails mounted above. The resulting shape resembles a vertical ketch.]

Ketch-rigged gaff

[Includes elements of ketch and sloop.]

Kloop-rigged sketch

[A gaff-rigged sloop is mounted on top of a second hull.]

Bunkbed rig

[The rectangular outline of a cylinder with motion lines around it.]

Flettner rig

[Three masts each with a sail only attached to the top.]

Oops, all spinnakers

[Three sails in a ketch arrangement, but mounted to the keel.]

Keel rig

[All sails are replaced by two groups of kites, each tied to the mast with an independent line.]

Kite rig

[Bermuda rigged sloop with the aft sail extending ~5 times as far back, well beyond the end of the hull.]

Longsail rig

[All sails replaced by an anchor that swings around the mast on a chain, similar to tetherball.]

Deckhand obliterator

[Gaff rigged sloop sails are mounted on a mast that is offset (forward) from the hull via an underwater extension of the keel.]

Offset rig

[A single sail is attached where the mast would normally be mounted, flapping around freely.]

Mastless rig

[Includes elements of the schooner, yawl, lateen, and possibly others.]

Unclassifiable chaos rig

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Discussion

Here before all the "here im first" comments TheTrainsKid (talk) 05:06, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

I can't help but notice that he forgot about cutters. PDesbeginner (talk) 05:07, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

 :D Qwertyuiopfromdefly (talk) 05:15, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

Flettner Rig may refer to https://xkcd.com/3119/ 73.225.91.80 06:19, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

Yes, but also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flettner_rotor 130.76.187.47 12:57, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

I see Randall has taken up a new hobby :D 152.115.135.109 08:21, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

Perhaps. I presume that the entire comic is in service to the pun in the title text. Philhower (talk) 13:44, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

Originaly the title text was made after the comic, as an extra joke that is not originally part of the plan. This I have seen Randall say at some point. So I would not expect he came up with the pun and then the made the comic. Of course he could have changed his mind. But there are several other jokes and references in the 18 labels of the boats, so it is not only the catch22 joke anyway. --Kynde (talk) 16:19, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

Wikipedia does have a kite rig web page. That's a real thing, but usually not as pretty as here. And I suppose you could do helium balloons. Robert Carnegie [email protected] 85.115.54.203 11:46, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

Why is this page (alone of all the comics, as far as I've seen) mirrored? The comic image, text, angle of the italics, etc. are all reversed on both the comic page and the front page. Stock Safari on iOS 16.7.12. D5xtgr (talk) 14:03, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

"Troll revision". Got it, mystery solved. Though I'm a bit surprised that raw styling like that's allowed, not just wiki markup. D5xtgr (talk) 14:09, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

I remember looking through all kinds of rig-types when trying to describe (and/or explain) a prior comic with a particular sailing ship design on it (some time ago, not sure which one). Might well be that Randall's been looking at the same page as I did. ;) 92.23.2.208 14:44, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

The offset rig one could be a reference to speed record sailboats. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vestas_Sailrocket) For torque reasons, they have the mast mounted on a horizontal boom and offset far off the side of the boat. Though on the other hand, speed record boats have this boom above the water, and only have single sails. 2600:4040:2C96:4700:953D:B3CC:B3DB:2C2E 15:19, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

That looks to me more like a form of catamaran (or partly-inline trimarang). 92.23.2.208 (talk) 20:04, 13 January 2026 (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Are you sure it isn't a boomarang? 82.13.184.33 09:54, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

You're probably thinking of a boo!meringue, a surprising way to use egg-whites. 82.132.238.61 14:12, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

The definition of yawl is wrong. What matters is not position of mizzen relative to rudder post, but to water line. Ketches often have the mizzen mast behind the rudder. 46.114.57.23 (talk) 15:23, 13 January 2026 (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

There is no hard-and-fast definition of ketch vs yawl, really it goes by how the boat handles. Having said that, the usual definition, and most commonly quoted, is whether the mizzen mast is fore or aft of the rudder post... and in most cases this definition works. Martin (talk) 22:15, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

Bunkbed rig could also be reference to a Hydrofoil, the idea that the boat moves so fast it climbs out of the water. 198.180.154.20 15:48, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

The "OOPS, ALL SPINNAKERS" could be made to work (although only sailing downwind, and only up to the speed of the airflow) by using spinnakers increasingly tightly woven so that the upwind ones would let pass most of the airflow with the subsequent ones being increasingly tightly woven, thus minimalizing the loss of efficiency due to the escape of airflow around the edges of each spinnaker. Such a setup could potentially allow to maximize the use of the airflow force when sailing directly downwind, although the increase in complexity and wheight would likely lead to an overall loss of efficiency compared to a single, well-designed spinnaker. In any case the spinnaker (basically a parachute on a mast) is only designed to add a little extra boost when sailing downwind in a strong wind for a relatively long time (when the main sails can't catch much wind; in this configuration the main sail(s) are typically angled at a very wide angle against the airflow which is very suboptimal for a "foil" sail), in all other cases the foil-like sails are much more efficient and do allow to sail faster than the wind, which the spinnaker can't achieve, by design. 2001:861:3F07:A020:D17C:74A0:94EF:9DAD 21:30, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

"Real: No" should probably be "Real: Not as of January 13, 2026." Because at least for a few of those, someone out there will see the comic and say "Hmm, that's an interesting idea" and make it happen. 64.201.132.210 22:05, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

The explanation for Yawl contains an incorrect definition of fore-and-aft rigging. It says a mast has two sails "One in front of the mast and one behind, known as fore-and-aft rigging" but that is not what fore-and-aft rigging means. Even a single sail can be fore-and-aft rigged, which means it is rigged to a boom and/or the centreline of the boat. This is different from square-rigged, which means rigged to a spar which goes across the boat from one side to the other (at right angles to the centreline). Martin (talk) 22:26, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

The Offset Rig would work downwind. But it would *only* work downwind because the center of effort is so far forward of the center of lateral resistance. Martin (talk) 23:33, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

Cropped images

I brought over the Template:CSS image crop from enwiki and added cropped images to the table and…it doesn't look quite as good as I had hoped. Perhaps they need to be scaled down. Still, my patience for finding all the boundaries and entering them is at an end, so … perhaps someone else can make it look better without doing a lot of work. Not sure. good luck. (I forget how this was done in prior explanations, ugh. Maybe in a better way. I forgot to look before doing this work.) JohnHawkinson (talk) 15:29, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

I went through the very-redlinking documentation part and stripped out (or commented out) various things that did not 'translate well' on this site due to not having the requisite support templates. (And trivially list-formatted the parameter explanations.) (I didn't stop it from giving itself the redlinked category used to track invalid uses of the template, checking the documented examples could reveal which does that... assuming we don't want to just remove that check-and-categorisation from the 'working' template codeanyway.) If anyone cares to look at the form of the code that has so much more transcluded template-formatting, it's the second edit-version of the page that you need to go through and consider what can be (and needs to be) re-added in.

As to how we've done it before, it's generally done by salami-slicing the image (from the big image on this or the original site) and then manually uploading those mini fragments as images in their own right to use in support (see, e.g. how 730: Circuit Diagram has done it). 92.23.2.208 20:04, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, yes, I thought about fixing up the template documentation and decided it just was not worth the effort, but happy to have you have done it. I do think using "sprites" from the main image works better than uploading the cross product of rows and columns as separate files. Thanks for the 730 reference, all I could remember was 1928: Seven Years where I solved a different but related problem in a different way (overlay numbering sub-panels while applying an alpha channel and referencing those numbers as callouts), though curiously we did not continue it for 2386: Ten Years or 3172: Fifteen Years. Maybe there should be a Category:Image-based explanation markup solutions to put these all in. I am a little bit joking, but more serious than not.

Also, we could definitely rewrite this template so it could be used in a less verbose way with numbered parameter fields and maybe a scaling factor. Or, for that matter, to take a list of intersection points and to return the nth sub-image given those corner points. But, of course, I went with what seemed the easiest lift at the time. JohnHawkinson (talk) 20:42, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

Apparnetly @DollarStoreBa'al disagrees first. I wish they had said something. JohnHawkinson (talk) 21:49, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

My bad. Just noticed that somebody wanted to resize easier, and so I did that. By the way, I don't believe this site can do pings (I certainly didn't get one). Also thought it would be easier to modify the images by just going the traditional way instead of using CSS.--DollarStoreBa'al^Converse 00:50, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Where/with whom was the resizing discussion, please? As for pings, yes, I guess I expect you to read the talk page. Also, please use an edit summary, especially if you are going to undo someone else's hard and innovative work! JohnHawkinson (talk) 08:06, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

Could be refering to your above "Perhaps they need to be scaled down." comment?

And the wiki principle in use here is that if someone sees merit in completely overhauling any page, for whatever reason, then they can do. As you added a completely new-to-this-site template for your idea of how to do it. Which was interesting, and may be useful in the future as well, but might have used a bit more review along the way. This doesn't stop someone else reversing or rechanging what another person did for similarly imagined good reasons, and it only becomes a problem if it's done with bad intent and/or becomes a battle between two mutually exclusive ideologies. Summaries are useful, of course, but some changes may also be fairly self-evident. 82.132.238.61 14:12, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

82.132.238.61, your speculative response here is unhelpful. I asked @DollarStoreBa'al why they did what they did, I am not interested in guesses from others about it, which I think also make it harder to get the answer I was seeking (hence the strength of this response now). I was careful not to allege some of the things you are responding to. And as for whether the changes were self-evident, that is not responsive to the issue of summaries — the point of summaries is to make it manageable to review changes by looking at the history or the notification emails without having to individually review each and every change — unless you are going to review the diffs, either en masse or individually, then the self-evidentiary nature of them is irrelevant. Thank you. I apologize that I sound annoyed. JohnHawkinson (talk) 14:24, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

"…it doesn't look quite as good as I had hoped. Perhaps they need to be scaled down"

-JohnHawkinson

--DollarStoreBa'al^Converse 14:28, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

Also, don't really see the whole point of introducing an entire new system to do something we could already do. --DollarStoreBa'al^Converse 14:30, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

@DollarStoreBa'al I don't know what method you used to guillotine the image, but I found it substantially faster and more efficient to divide up the images by coordinates than to create 18 individual images based on my experience doing that in the past. The individual image choice also results in different scaling factors for different images, which has its pros and cons — I don't think it's great, though. It means, for instance, the Longsail Rig is squeezed down to the same width of other images and no longer appears as "long." I'd encourage you in the future to think carefully about undoing without discussion another person's work to address what you perceive to be that person's perception that it could be improved. That kind of thing has an effect on people's willingness to contribute and participate. Thanks. JohnHawkinson (talk) 14:53, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

Well, all I did was take screenshots of them and then resize them when I actually implemented them. I don't know why you're peeved by the Longsail not being long enough (it's still a different ratio than the other images, and is very clearly longer than the other ships within it), but I've resized the image to make it longer. --DollarStoreBa'al^Converse 15:36, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

Also, I believe this method actually positively affects people's willingness to participate. It makes the way to do this much clearer (and easier) compared to pixel measurements. Plus, how did you measure the pixels? Those were pretty precise measurements you had.--DollarStoreBa'al^Converse 15:43, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ @DollarStoreBa'al…yikes? Screenshots and resizing? Those are both methods that can lose fidelity…it's not worth agonizing overmuch, but as a general practice anything that degrades the image quality is something to be avoided (given that these are 1bpp b/w images, such concerns are at their nadir)…I had assumed they were native crops. Re longsail, my point is that Randall's artistic intent is in conflict with automatic scaling and I don't think the images should be scaled independently of each other. I'm not sure how you can assess participation, since I don't know why there would be much more attention to the images now that they are "done" (but the burden of uploading additional images with different crops if someone wanted to change one seems to me a lot higher than changing one number in the wikitext of a template). I can't predict the future, but I can definitely say that it had a substantial negative impact on me (especially to hear it's because of how you interpreted my own comment on the talk page!). I regret that's being expressed here in the text now. To answer your question, I measured the pixels by drawing ruler guides on the master image and reading them off. I don't think the precision speaks to participation in any way (not sure if that's what was meant by "Plus,"). JohnHawkinson (talk) 16:13, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

I really like the table as it is now. I did not see the first version. But the current version looks like what we have done several times before, and that is easy for anyone to understand and edit. I have no idea what the other way is. But I have made tables like this when I was more active. It is not important what the image looks like in the table as you have the full comic above. It is just to make sure you know which boat is being discussed. And people do not read the entire discussion before making changes, I don't. It has become quite long this one. And yes you do not get any notification if someone replies here. If you need to get hold of someone's attention posting on their talk page is the best chance. That is also they way to reach me, the only active admin at the moment. But I'm not very active. But if someone posts om my page I will get an e-mail and then I will read it. I try to make a mention of what I do when I make larger changes, but it can fail. I do hope this doesn't deter you from making contributions another time though! Great you are invested in it. But personally I think this simpler way is the way to go here. --Kynde (talk) 16:35, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

You know what I'd do, for the individual images? Take the _2x (which is greyscale, BTW, not 1bpp - possibly even full colour with nothing but greyscales, if you look into it). In something like GIMP, select each ship-shape by your favourite magic colour-selection-tool on the black bit that doesn't select every bit of black (or unselect the stray bits that the default threshold included), then expand the selection by a given small number of pixels, whatever number looks good to give it an aesthetic boundary. Copy and paste to new layer, that layer being cropped to the selection, then floodfill white around the edge transparent edging. Rinse, repeat, takes just a few clicks (or keyboard combos) per item, slightly more complicated if there weren't such a clear containing rectangle - so not quite so easy for Circuit Diagram, but increases the effort from maybe 10 seconds per 'extract' to maybe 15-20 seconds. It'd take longer to start GIMP up in the first place, waiting for the splash-logo to go away and then for it to briefly fish around for any add-ons that need loading.

If you feel like creating your own scripted tool for this, even less time per instance, but see 1205: Is It Worth the Time?... ;)

For each layer-separated item, export as an image in their own right. Though I'd personally also at this point (after all possible messing with the original antialiased 'fuzziness') descale the _2x-scaled subimages (consistently) to be smaller. Perhaps to be like the non-_2x one. Right now, my view of the illustrated table in the Explanation has far larger images of each ship than they are in the comic image, though that might just be peculiar to this browser on this device. But you don't need more than the basic likeness of each subimage. It could stand to be half the size of the comic's appearence, whether by dynamic scaling or the base image being rescaled.

But as I'm not an authorised uploader, here, I've spent about the same time explaining what I'd do as I'd probably need to do this whole thing. And it doesn't matter as it's been done, and well enough (overscaling issues aside) for all practical purposes. Spending time with screenshotting (which is so much more complicated these days than it used to be) or hovering a image-editor over pixels to record their relevent coordinates (I did a lot of that for 3186: Truly Universal Outlet, for something I did for my own entertainment - and I recon that Randall got the M-type plug wrong plus ignored the second L-type) is your choice, if you prefer to do it that way. 82.132.238.61 17:28, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

Ok, guys and gals. All images are now specified for display by height alone ("x<number>px"), that being the actual image height halved (rounded down, where that'd be fractional). On the assumption that they weren't rescaled between screenshotting and uploading, but it doesn't look like they are. This way, they aren't larger than they display on the {{comic}}-header picture of the whole comic, and the "longtail" image isn't so wide as to dominate the table. We don't need to waste space with 'top-definition' images.

Tested on both laptop and Android browsers, they're always still large enough to be easily recognisable and representative. Also, I centred the cell contents, for further aesthetic reasons. 92.23.2.208 20:22, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

Of course I am biased, but one of the things lost in the @DollarStoreBa'al changes, which I had not noticed initially, is the titles of the sub-images in Randall's hand-font. I included those initially for a reason, and I think the chart looks better with them. Others may disagree, of course, but again, seems like the kind of change that would merit discussion before doing, especially when it's done in a way that is hard to change (see my overly-repeated points above). [p.s. I didn't mean the image format was 1bpp, I meant the contents were notionally such; although I suppose they do have some antialiasing. ] JohnHawkinson (talk) 20:38, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

Never saw that version. But that just makes the images taller (for a given degree of scaling) and adds nothing to the column that has that same text as non-image data. Unless there's some subtle joke in the actual style of writing that I'm missing (like deliberately bad-kerning, that might not have been replicated in the pure text).

But that's just my opinion. Maybe someone else thinks its more necessaary.

Also, using the {{diff}}-template might be something that you'd want to use. i.e. "one of the things lost in the changes, which I had not noticed initially"... Just in case you weren't aware of it. 92.23.2.208 21:43, 14 January 2026 (UTC)
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