126: Red Spiders Cometh

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Red Spiders Cometh

Title text: Uh-oh.

Explanation

The fourth in the series of sketches involving red spiders, the titular spiders are overlooking a small city. The title text implies that things won't end well, and possibly that the counter-offensive from the previous comic in the series had failed.

The full series of Red Spiders comics:

• 8: Red Spiders, the first one.
• 43: Red Spiders 2, in which the spiders begin building.
• 47: Counter-Red Spiders, in which the humans begin a counter-offensive.
• 126: Red Spiders Cometh, this one.
• 427: Bad Timing, in which, in a style more typical to xkcd, the spiders attack a couple in the middle of a serious relationship discussion in a hot-air balloon.
• 442: xkcd Loves the Discovery Channel, in which it appears briefly in the 14th panel crawling over a cube.

Transcript

[Many red spiders, standing on and hanging from blocks, hover ominously over a small city, ready to attack.]

Trivia

This sort of drawing, with blocks converging on a horizon, is a common type of drawing practice to practice three-dimensional views.

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Discussion

Does anyone else think that the red spiders are supposed to be revealed as unexpectedly huge in this entry of the Red Spiders series, and that's to what the "Uh-oh" in the title text refers? That is, the humans in "Counter-Red Spiders" thought they could fight the red spiders, but the perspective in "Red Spiders Cometh" reveals the red spiders to be building-sized rather than person-sized? ...Or am I probably just over-thinking this, and the spiders' blocks are curving down from the viewer toward the city, resulting in a false apparent size, and the "Uh-oh" just refers to their arrival? Because it really seems to me that 1: the spiders are on a much larger scale than humans, and 2: this is a troubling revelation as of "Red Spiders Cometh". JET73L (talk) 07:21, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

I imagined them to be human sized. Still scary and formidable prompting the same title response. I would love to see the author do another Red Spiders comic. I want to see the fight between them.72.193.184.110 07:02, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

there's no way to tell what the size of the spiders is. the perspective has the spiders closer to the observer (us) than the buildings, so they might actually be any size (depending on how close they are). 108.162.254.85 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

The comic "Bad Timing" indicates their bodies are about the size of a human head. 108.162.238.177 14:39, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

From which we should be able to figure out how close they are. Richmond tudor (talk) 05:02, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Personally, I think if them as all being in the micro scale - the city & people too, which would explain how people can make such a tall human ladder in the counter red spiders comic. Maybe small enough to float down on the blocks (because air is a proportionally more viscous fluid at that scale iirc)? Them again I imagine them being inspired by clover mites, which is probably totally unfounded

09:10, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

Guys? Anyone feel that the grammar error (unless I'm to be a silhouette on someone's desk soon) is worth mention? "Cometh" is third person singular ("he cometh", but "they come") after all... Unless I'm wrong. 108.162.225.92 14:53, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

I think it is probably a pun on "comets", which the spiders are kind of falling down along with. 02:18, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

They're mites, dammit.—Kazvorpal (talk) 01:45, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

One of the interesting things about this strip is that top and bottom work at ANY scale. Are the mites small and in the foreground, traveling away from us and approaching the city (this is the interpretation that puts them the right size for #427)? Midground, building-sized spiders, hovering above the city as the article claims? Or far distance, city-sized spiders, approaching the city from space, not following the curve of the Earth? Is the city a microcity? --172.69.71.95 15:01, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Look, he's crawling up my wall... black and hairy, very small... now he's up above my head... hanging by a little thread...

Boris the Red Spider! Boris the Red Spider!

With apologies to The Who. 162.158.30.86 12:40, 4 March 2023 (UTC)