XKCD's 14-foot-wide CLICK AND DRAG map

Today's XKCD, "Click and Drag," is a triumph. It's a tribute to House of Leaves, and it treats the punchline as a window to a ginormous, explorable world that you can see by clicking and dragging. Dan Catt puts the artwork at 46 feet wide, assuming it is printed at 300dpi. It's full of Munrovian sly humor and sight gags, and has its own underground civilization. It's not like any other thing I've seen.

If you want to mouse around in a zoomable version of the map, see this mashup. If (when) Randall offers this for sale as a poster, I may have to throw away some furniture to make room for it.

Click and Drag (via Kottke)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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endymion

I also thought this xkcd was astonishing, and something new.

Can someone please explain the House of Leaves connection? Does it have something to do with the first line of the comic (“from the stories”) which I also didn’t understand?
- http://twitter.com/amanicdroid Dr. Chronobiologist
  
  When I directed the comic at Cory (which he retweeted), I mentioned “House of Leaves”:
  
  @doctorow Randall did some “House of Leaves”/TARDIS shit with his latest http://xkcd.com/1110/ #TheInsideIsBiggerThanTheOutside
  
  https://twitter.com/amanicdroid/status/248321293282328576
  
  I don’t know that there’s any intentional tribute-making by Randall.
  - Dovanna
    
    Randall did do a House of Leave spoof a few years ago:
    http://xkcd.com/472/
http://ravenlunatick.wordpress.com/ ravenlunatick

This was/is awesome. It’s like the GD Tardis.
xzzy

Well, I just found something the magic trackpad is not good for.
Paul Renault

I was sooo glad I’m on vacation, so I could explore, this morning. I thought I had found almost everything, but I was sure there was something I’d missed. Thanks!

/Off to look for a bowl of petunias…

//Edited to add: It’s not 14 feet wide. It’s at least two miles wide.

///While I’m here: “Really, miles, Randall Munroe? Never heard of SI?”

////Final edit: a clue to the size of the drawing is in the drawing.
- http://twitter.com/amanicdroid Dr. Chronobiologist
  
  If the poster was printed out at current scale it would be 14 feet wide. If scaled to ~life-size it would be 2 miles/3.22 km wide.
  
  Thanks Linsey Young
  - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=548669917 Linsey Young
    
    2 miles = 3.22km (approximately)
    - http://twitter.com/amanicdroid Dr. Chronobiologist
      
      Facts and research in a comment thread?!?
jerwin

My wrists thank you for the zoomable map. It destroys some of the serendipity of suddenly seeing a balloon, or a isolated cave passage, but such is life..
- jerwin
  
  I found out that it’s a bit more bearable on an ipad,
  - George Miller
    
    But unusable on an iPod touch.
planettom

So the two things that seem most unlikely to find through random exploration (Easter Egg-ish) are the high-altitude space whales…

…and, far beneath the sea platform, there’s a jellyfish or giant squid or Cthulhu or something, watching a TV screen, apparently.

But most of the things in there seem to be specific references, not just random gags…

The space whales could be a Douglas Adams reference (But since there are two of them I don’t really think so), or a STAR TREK IV riff.

Maybe it’s just sort of general purpose Space Whales as might appear on some Roger Dean album artwork or something.

But the jellyfish/squid/Cthulhu watching what appears to be a video screen…. any ideas?

I’m reminded of one Arthur C. Clarke short story where a guy is in a deep-sea submersible and starts communicating with giant squid through electronic images (in his case, projected from a screen, in their case, actually formed on their own bodies via luminosity).
- WhyBother
  
  You notice a bit up and to the right of that jellyfish, there’s a larger school of jellyfish socializing.
  
  The one you found is alone, “in his room,” playing video games.
- Ipo
  
  Did you find the third whale? A breaching humpback.
- Hillary Taylor
  
  I assumed the squid was on a laptop, presumably stealing internet from the “bitcoin-only island nation” above.
- glittalogik
  
  There’ve been two recent-ish space whale appearances in Wondermark, might be related to that?
  http://wondermark.com/tag/dusty-space-whale/
- Martijn
  
  I thought that screen was a portal through which the jellyfish entered this subterranean dimension.
- http://profile.yahoo.com/K335U5VHDGIUVDKMKBL44JNZ4M L.Sizzle
  
  lol I, by total chance, found the squid watching tv thing, just decided to so a random dive down below that platform. Soon after I found the tunnel I went to the zoomable version, would have given up otherwise. But I think you could miss some stuff on the zoomable one, like the two raptors almost hidden in the grass way off to the left
Lotney

This one really got to me. I got lost in the caves and every little person I found there made me feel a little less alone. It reminded me constantly of Blind Descent, a book I read some time ago about supercave exploration that I actually discovered through Boing Boing.
SamSam

For the best experience, you should certainly spend at least ten minutes or so at the original, clicking through. Yes it can be a slog, but it’s a slog travelling around the world as well!

After you have had the joy of stumbling upon enough fun experiences, only then jump to the zoomable map….
sorrykb

Whales are “Fantasia 2000″ reference??
http://profiles.google.com/monteslu Luis Montes

Did a stitching of the screen and some more explanation here: https://plus.google.com/103067286453763274834/posts/8jBSM31xBCX

You can get low res 10 megapixel version :)
lorq

I’m really impressed by how Munroe keeps topping himself. Some serious commitment to quality control there.
knoxblox

I wonder how many people think about this, tl;dc&d
nathanroberts

I searched and searched through the world looking for the Minecraft gag that I knew had to be there. And sure enough, it was. Exactly how I imagined it, even.

I must say that the zoomable version is far superior, even if you don’t use the zoom, if for no other reason than being able to navigate with the keyboard.
- Boundegar
  
  Took me 10 minutes to find the creeper, but I KNEW there would be a creeper. Somewhere.
http://www.facebook.com/rossevertson Ross Evertson

14 meters wide, not feet (re:title)
Mister User

This made me go and play TERRARIA again -
http://www.terraria.org/
ScottCh

I was certain that there would be a shark suspended from a large baloon drifting somewhere, and… I haven’t seen it.
http://profile.yahoo.com/MWNNAJTTXSXFUN4A6FLTKAT264 Michael

I really want a version I could download and save my current position.
http://horseisahorse.myopenid.com/ HorseIsAHorse

There’s some speculation in the XKCD forum that this could be the last, or maybe penultimate, XKCD. I hope they’re wrong, and I’m just being Chicken Little mentioning it here. But if they’re right, this is an amazing way to go out.

http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=91362
David Carroll

Scrolling across the landscape reminds me of Limbo (which is a good thing, in a creepy way).
http://profiles.google.com/chudez Ted Bautista

instant RSI … but … still … can’t … stop.
http://twitter.com/Skyhawk1 skyhawk1

A nice way to spend time during a rainy afternoon.
Gavin Hamill

Anyone reminded of Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet? http://www.gagneint.com/itsp/itsp_main_art_02.html