xkcd.com

Randall Munroe’s hilarious online comic strip xkcd (“a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language”) is usually a minimalistic enterprise, populated by faceless stick figures individualized only by their hairstyles.

But Munroe, suddenly and perhaps for one time only, has gone maximalist with the entry “Click and Drag.”

He’s created an immense silhouette landscape that starts in the middle. You then drag the image inside a relatively small window.

There are ocean waters (with boats large and small), islands, hills, cliffs, trees, aircraft, a skyscraper, radio/TV towers, and a labyrinth of underground tunnels.

Munroe’s stick-people show up all along the way, offering gag lines and little playlets. There are references to Star Wars, Super Mario Bros., Pokémon, 2001: A Space Odyssey, the Icarus legend, previous xkcd strips, our ol’ pal Sean Nelson, and even Elizabeth Warren’s Senate campaign.

Glenn Hauman at Comicmix.com claims Munroe’s tableau is probably “the biggest comics panel ever.”

How big, you ask?

Some online reviews estimate it at 165,888 pixels by 79,872 pixels. The whole thing, if printed out at an average screen-resolution rate, would be about 150 feet wide.

Folks have made screen shots of the different segments and stitched them together into a single zoomable image. Yes, viewing it this way reveals even more “Easter egg” gags you might have otherwise missed.

I can imagine only two practical ways to turn “Click and Drag” into a real-world thing. It could be published as a folding-scroll “accordion book” (like old Chinese “scroll paintings“). Or it could be installed as a mural in a contemporary art museum somewhere.

Either way, I can imagine someone in charge trying to persuade Munroe to condense some of the long stretches of grassy plains and ocean waves between gags.