August 11th, 2008
Explaining Greatness
A guy at worked showed me this and after some intense, once or twice, google searching I couldn’t find anything relating to it on zee web. So I made a comic out of it.
When you jump down the rabbit hole of starting your own webcomic it becomes very easy to build up animosity towards other webcomics. Such as a really successful stick figure comic. But, somehow XKCD keeps me coming back with the sheer content and hilariousness of the comic. I just hope this isn’t old news and i just missed it.
![[del.icio.us]](http://images.del.icio.us/static/img/delicious.small.gif){kind=small}
August 11th, 2008 at 6:56 am
I’ve never heard of this, or realized it myself. I stumbled across your website through reddit though, where it seems no one else has, either. http://www.reddit.com/r/all/comments/6vrpb/explaining_xkcd_greatness/
August 11th, 2008 at 9:33 am
[...] [link] [comments] [...]
August 11th, 2008 at 10:37 am
O
M
F
G
!
/creaming my pants.
August 11th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Answer_to_Life,_the_Universe,_and_Everything
August 11th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
It all makes sense. I am now complete. Congrats…you have won the game.
August 11th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
i still dont get it…
August 11th, 2008 at 11:02 pm
oh i get it now kthxbye
August 11th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
42 is the answer given by a humongous computer built for the purpose of answering “The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything” after thousands of years computing in a book called “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Answer_to_Life%2C_the_Universe%2C_and_Everything
August 12th, 2008 at 5:13 am
It…it all makes sense now. It’s so clear.. Genius!
August 12th, 2008 at 10:32 am
Sorry JaxSpider
OMFG is only 38, not quite 42
August 12th, 2008 at 11:50 am
well wtf is the significance of xkcd…..nothing……this comic is stupid. thats like saying I-K….9-11 ***GASP***
August 12th, 2008 at 11:54 am
to “yeahhh”
Fail elsewhere, please.
August 12th, 2008 at 11:54 am
http://www.xkcd.com
You idiot.
August 12th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
OMG, finally it makes sense!
August 12th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
“DarkMantle
August 12th, 2008 at 10:32 am
Sorry JaxSpider
OMFG is only 38, not quite 42″
sorry dumbass… 24+11+3+4 = 42… retard
August 12th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
To People Are naturally Stupid: you’re a fucking moron, and you’re ignorant post just highlights that point, jackass.
August 12th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
@People Are naturally Stupid: sweet random capitalization!
@Including yourself: YOU’RE missing the point here I think.
August 12th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
People Are naturally Stupid: your name says it all.
p.s. what’s with the inconsistent capitalizations?
August 12th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
That’s a pretty cool observation but I dont think it’s the reason for the name.
From http://xkcd.com/about/
”
What does XKCD stand for?
It’s not actually an acronym. It’s just a word with no phonetic pronunciation. It stands for the comic and everything the comic stands for!
”
Still it’s a good geeky coincidence.
August 12th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Thats rad, i never thought of it like that. Its all so clear. Perhaps earth really is a super computer, producing random comics, of good hilariousity, under the name XKCD, or the writer did it on purpose, which would be sick, a true fan of Mr. Adams. haha or it could just be randomness that is awesome.
August 12th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
HOLY CRAP! That’s brilliant. I have a new respect for xkcd.
August 13th, 2008 at 4:53 am
omg win
August 13th, 2008 at 5:07 am
For those who do not know what XKCD, wth have you been living in?
August 13th, 2008 at 8:47 am
omg. The World makes sense. My life has all fallen into place. Sweeeeet.
August 13th, 2008 at 9:05 am
has anyone sent Randy a link to this yet? I am sure he will be very amused.
August 13th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
People Are naturally Stupid
I think Dark Mantle was saying
O M F G
15+13+6+7=38 (though it is 41, not 38)
when he said “OMFG is only 38, not quite 42″ in response to JaxSpider, he was making a joke.
also, for those who don’t understand (yeahhh , penisman)
go read “Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy” You’ll laugh a bit, and you’ll understand 42 a bit more clearly.
August 14th, 2008 at 9:28 am
OMG is this site populated by pseudointelectuals. I think I will start a religious website called GOD’s number times 2… this in turn will fry off that lonely brain cell.
Let me see… Geek likes D Adams… geek writes website… geek not very inventive … geek trys to be funny… XKCD… QED (wow 26 for QED) what is this feckin scrabble.
August 14th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Xtreme Kansas College of Dentistry!!!
August 14th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Very nice, er, I mean sudo very nice.
August 15th, 2008 at 8:16 am
Thanks Glueboy for the back story. Now I get it!
August 15th, 2008 at 11:42 am
…
Woah ….
Everything suddenly makes perfect sense ……
August 15th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Haha, funny (or maybe a little sad) how there is no feedback for any other strips but this one provoked a flood of them!
I like your work, and I think the humor is gentle but salient. Keep it up!
August 16th, 2008 at 12:13 am
Yeah, you win. It officially makes sense now. I wonder what Doug would think? I bet he’d agree.
August 17th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Your blog is interesting!
Keep up the good work!
August 18th, 2008 at 3:40 am
OM MY GOD! GENIUS!
August 20th, 2008 at 4:59 am
very interesting
August 20th, 2008 at 5:07 am
kai
August 14th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Xtreme Kansas College of Dentistry!!!
You mean to say that people have 42 teeth
August 26th, 2008 at 10:09 am
I may have just emulated that last cell! I always wondered what it stood for and was too afraid of looking dumb to ask! Thank you for solving that one for me!
August 30th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
well I guess the only reason why people talk so much shit on these forum things is that now they cannot be held responsible for their miss guided spewings of BS.
So what if you don’t get a comic’s joke, move on other wise you just end up looking like a stuck up retarded Jack Ass. Don’t like it, I think that there is enough room on the net for you to go somewhere else and watch chicks blow horses.
August 30th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
funny thing is I won’t even read what any of you will say in response to this being I found this site on a “stumble” and may never see it again. like I said the nets a big place.
September 5th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
ha! that’s a great idea for a comic, I’m sad I didn’t think of it! good show! Now I have added your RSS because of this!
September 10th, 2008 at 12:02 am
[...] P.S. Mr. Munroe claims that xkcd doesn’t stand for anything. However, if you assign each letter a number (A=1, B=2, C=3, etc), X+K+C+D => 24+11+3+4 = 42. Check that out, you can’t make up that shit. And no, I didn’t figure that out all by myself. [...]
September 10th, 2008 at 1:39 am
Thanks for the link back Andrew.
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:45 am
Of course, you fail to realize that the assignment of numbers to letters is just about the most arbitrary thing there is. In addition, you’re using a specific order applied to letters used to represent sound elements of languages which originally had no sound symbols attached to them when they were first created.
September 26th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
[...] been previously used in any significant way. I’m not so sure. I’m apparently not the first one to realize this, but if you take A=1, B=2, and so on, adding up the values of XKCD gives [...]
October 31st, 2008 at 3:16 am
Personally, I loved the comic.
I’ve been going to XKCD for a while now,
and always finding myself having the urge
to return over and over again.
Daily, almost.
Basically, this comic is brilliant if you’re on the same level as the rest of us.
Peace.
November 3rd, 2008 at 10:54 pm
thank you for explaining it to me now i can tell my mom the reason i want to stay home is to read the answer to life
January 7th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
divine love, wo the www where would we be?
everything has to start with a number we all come from ONE
February 19th, 2009 at 6:25 am
*nerdgasm*
March 12th, 2009 at 8:40 pm
What XKCD means:
http://xkcd.com/207/
March 24th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
I love U2!!
April 17th, 2009 at 10:51 am
THAT explains why XKCD is so great! Awesome, well noted
October 18th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
Can you provide more information on similar issues, or do you have some resources you can share where i can read more about such interesting myspace stuff?
October 24th, 2009 at 2:03 am
who cares
November 12th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
why does
x=24?
k=11?
c=3?
d=4?
… i understand the rest.
November 12th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
op op i got it now.
November 22nd, 2009 at 10:31 pm
…. O_O it all makes sense now…..
December 10th, 2009 at 5:06 am
ooooohhhhh…..Aaaaahhhhh…i see
December 30th, 2009 at 9:18 am
Just out of interest, I decided to see what other letter combinations will also add up to 42. If each letter can only be used once, then there are 1289 unique combinations of letters, including XKCD, TV, XR, NOM, SIN, CHOP, CENT, GUN, DINO and FILO.
If anyone is interested, here’s the full list: http://pastebin.com/f4d5dd1c4
February 3rd, 2010 at 3:23 pm
MENTLEGEN
April 1st, 2010 at 5:50 am
[...] “x+k+c+d=42″. Short Minds. http://shortminds.com/2008/08/11/explaining-greatnes/. Retrieved September 6, [...]