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| Orogeny |
 Title text: Most properties can only boast INDOOR heated floors. |
Explanation
This comic is about an orogeny, the creation of mountain ranges at convergent tectonic plate boundaries.
The mountain range that Cueball and Ponytail are looking at was formed a billion years ago, but the mountains themselves have been eroded away and replaced. This could reference the Ship of Theseus thought experiment. Cueball analogizes this to a fully-renovated home, and Ponytail continues the analogy by jokingly pretending to use this as a real estate opportunity, offering it for sale to Cueball. She makes the sales pitch that this is good solid plutonic bedrock, freshly uplifted (from below the surface from the collision of the tectonic plates). Cueball plays along by saying he'd prefer 'new construction', and suggests a volcanic seamount, which Ponytail rejects on the basis of it being quite literally 'too hot' - covered in lava or soon to be so. This is a pun, as a 'hot' real estate market normally means that properties are selling quickly, usually leading to high prices that may be over-inflated.
The title text continues the joke, pointing out that most houses with heated floors have them only inside, with the implication that a volcano's magma (underground) or lava (on the surface) can make a heated floor outside.
Orogeny was also mentioned in 1082: Geology.
This comic is reminiscent of the Home Inspections series, but given that there is not yet a home to assess, it is not strictly part of that category. There was also the recent 3051: Hardwood, about defining underlying geology as part of a house, which might hint at Randall working all around a wider theme.
Despite being released on April 1st (in some timezones of the world), it is not an April Fools comic. It was still March 31st for Randall, and is consistent with a normal Monday comic. This may or may not imply that an April Fools comic will be released later (or as soon as it practical, as in 2916: Machine which was only ready for release on the Friday of the week in which Monday was April 1st), or there may not be an April Fools comic at all this year.
Transcript
- [Cueball and Ponytail are seen from afar standing together on hill and looking out at a mountain range with mountains going all the way to the horizon, with more than 20 peaks. The hills they are standing on is grassy and strewn with rocks.]
- Cueball: I hear these mountains are a billion years old.
- Ponytail: Well, sort of.
- [Close up of Cueball and Ponytail on a white background. Ponytail holds her hand palm up out towards Cueball.]
- Ponytail: An ancient collision created the mountain belt, but the actual rock layers have been continually uplifted and eroded away.
- [In a frame-less panel Cueball takes his hand to his chin looking down, while Ponytail now gestures away from Cueball with her palm held out.]
- Cueball: So it's an old mountain range, but it's been fully renovated?
- Ponytail: Yessir, torn down to the roots. This is good solid plutonic bedrock, freshly uplifted. Great value.
- Ponytail: You in the market?
- [They are now just standing normally talking to each other.]
- Cueball: I dunno, I was looking for new construction. You got any emerging volcanic seamounts?
- Ponytail: Nah, that market is a little too hot right now.
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