939: Arrow

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Arrow

Title text: 'The Return of the Boomerang' would make a great movie title.

Explanation

The comic appears to be a reference to 475: Further Boomerang Difficulties, which was a sequel to 445: I Am Not Good with Boomerangs, which had a man throwing a boomerang that never returned. Cueball shoots an arrow off with a bow and a boomerang returns to him. This confounds him. As it was also a Cueball that threw the boomerang in the other comic, this may be the same Cueball that now finally has his boomerang return to him after a long time (464 comics and nearly three years later). This would really freak him out then.

The title text is a pun on how boomerangs always come back, along with how "The Return of X" is often used for movie names.

However, as shown in the prequel as well as in an even earlier comic, Cueball/Randall has to admit: I Am Not Good with Boomerangs. So for him it would be a surprise if the boomerang returned!

Boomerangs also became a main theme in the interactive comic 1350: Lorenz.

Transcript

[Cueball stands with a bow and arrow drawn tightly, aiming off-screen.]

[He fires the arrow, it disappears offscreen. The bowstring vibrates for effect.]

[He stands holding the bow by their side, watching the arrow fly away.]

[A boomerang flies on-screen, coming from the direction the arrow was fired. Cueball reaches up to catch the boomerang.]

[Cueball is now holding the boomerang, staring at it with confusion.]

Trivia

• Part of this comic and 475: Further Boomerang Difficulties is the picture for the Brick Joke page on TV Tropes.

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Discussion

So there's a machine that dispenses boomerangs when you shoot it. Cool. Davidy²²[talk] 09:08, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Don't you know not to link to TVTROPES??? I barely made it out alive! http://xkcd.com/609/108.101.176.132 19:18, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Did that arrow ever re-appear in a comic? I presume it will not fly back to Cueball (after all it's not a boomerang), but likely will have hit something... Kaa-ching (talk) 20:45, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Or NOT! Before hitting something it will have to travel half the distance to it, and blablabla zeno's paradox.141.101.98.212 14:07, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Maybe this is it? https://www.xkcd.com/1153/ 172.69.10.112 11:32, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Tip: Putting a comment number in double square brackets ([[1153]]) will create a link that goes to this wiki, without requiring adding the whole xkcd link. Example: 1153

Obligatory warning! Never attempt to catch a boomerang! Boomerangs are thrown weapons, just because they are coming back towards the person who threw them doesn't make them any less weapons. -Pennpenn 108.162.250.162 00:56, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

Shortbow or longbow? SilverMagpie (talk) 17:24, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

SilverMagpie, that is a recurve bow. That means you get more power with less forgiveness when it comes to failure. We know by the curvature of the bow ends. (strange cat noises) (talk) 06:06, 2 December 2017 (UTC)