41: Old Drawing
Explanation
This comic plays off the pun between stumped, meaning confused or at a loss, and a stump, which is the remnants of a tree that has been cut down.
Anyone snooping into his journal would be punished by such a terrible pun. The pun is so terrible that even Randall does not want to talk about it, as he mentioned in the title text.
Transcript
- [A tree holding a chainsaw over a recently cut-down tree. The first text is in a frame at the top of the panel.]
- I found this in one of my high-school notebooks. I think I drew it just to take revenge on people snooping through my stuff.
- Tree stump: Well, you stumped me...
Trivia
- This was the 36th comic originally posted to LiveJournal.
- The previous was 33: Self-reference.
- The next was 35: Sheep.
- Original title: "Wednesday's Drawing - Old Notebook".
- Original Randall quote: "I'm on vacation! At home. Fresh drawings when I return!"
- This comic was posted on xkcd when the web site opened on Sunday the 1st of January 2006.
- It was posted along with all 41 comics posted before that on LiveJournal as well as a few others.
- The latter explaining why the numbers of these 41 LiveJournal comics ranges from 1-44.
- One of the original drawings drawn on checkered paper.
Discussion
I used to frighten people going through my stuff with occasional pictures of Cthulhu standing on a pentagram with the norse runes for "all hail the destroyer of souls" around it, just to make their day a little weirder. -- Gigahertz (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
Why is the pun so terribly punishing? (no pun intended) Benjaminikuta (talk) 07:31, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
I personally think that the comic means that the cut down tree is both a stump, and confused, no pun intended.