xkcd.WTF!?

Explanation ➲

Randall recently announced, in 2575: What If? 2, that he is publishing a new What If? book based on reader-submitted questions. This comic is another promotion of the book, and the entire comic is a link to his what if? 2 page on xkcd.

This comic shows the categories of questions he claims to have received, but rejected to use in his book, giving an example question for each category. In typical xkcd fashion, these begin out by being plausible, although often unlikely to have been submitted as a what if? question, moving in to more and more absurd types of questions, especially with the last question, that appears to be a combination of all previous categories and is therefore marked "?????"

The title text refers to the launch date of the book September 13, rendered in the American style 9/13. This format can be confusing to non-Americans, although usually not when the date is larger than 12, since it would then appear to reference the 9th day of the 13th month. This "13th month" was, however, referenced in the first comic about the book: 2575: What If? 2. See also Randall's take on the date format, ISO 8601, in 1179: ISO 8601.

Randall then continues the title text by referencing the second to last category with vague ominous questions. The example question here asks if there is need to worry about spiders after Tuesday. So Randall notes that the release date, 5.5 months after the release of this comic, is of course assuming anyone will survive past next Tuesday (2022-04-05).

Tuesday has been notably referenced in 277: Long Light, 564: Crossbows, 1099: Tuesdays and most notably in 1245: 10-Day Forecast, where it seems that the last day ever will be a Tuesday. Tuesday is the second day of the week, and notably, the Tuesday of the week following the publication of this cartoon (April 5th, 2022) was the Day of the Spiders.

"Spaceships and Soup" is a reference to the first chapter of What If? 2, where Randall looks into filling the Solar System with soup.