Flatland

by Jeff

Image text: Also, I apologize for the time I climbed down into your world and everyone freaked out about the lesbian orgy overseen by a priest.

Flatland is a short story by Edwin Abbott Abbott. Yes, that is really his name.  In Flatland, women are represented by lines, and the more important a man is, the more sides he has.  The least important male would be a triangle and the priest, in Flatland, has so many sides, he looks like a circle.  So, the image text is a reference to how an xkcd stick figure would look to the members of Flatland.  The text for Flatland is on Wikisource here, if you feel like browsing on your Wednesday morning.

Miegakure is an actual game in development that will allow the player to move in 4 dimensions.  The website is here, with a screen shot that looks eerily similar to panel 2.

And if you didn't realize, Spongebob is a reference to Spongebob Squarepants, the Nickelodeon cartoon about a sponge named Spongebob.  Spongebob is a square (as his name implies) - so that is why the character in the comic is able to draw arms and legs on the square to make him look like Spongebob Squarepants.