xkcd.WTF!?

Explanation ➲

Randall is parodying Mark Z. Danielewski's novel House of Leaves by renaming it House of Pancakes (after the American fast food franchise International House of Pancakes). House of Leaves has an unconventional page layout and style, including the colouring of every instance of the word "house" in blue, as is done on the menu. It includes footnotes within footnotes like Randall did here.

In House of Leaves, protagonist Johnny Truant (whose meta-narration is marked by Courier font as mimicked in the comic) discovers a book called The Navidson Record (represented here by the pancake menu), which in turn details a film of the same name, which in turn details a horror story of a family living in a sentient house. Truant, who is clearly intelligent and cultured, probes deeper into notating The Navidson Record—and into insomnia—until The Navidson Record consumes his mind horrifically, the same way the film in the novel consumed the author of The Navidson Record, the same way the house in the novel consumed part of the family.

House of Leaves lends itself to many interpretations, but has been called a "satire of academic criticism," which makes this comic essentially a satire of a satire. Since part of the appeal of House of Leaves is that it takes itself extremely seriously with its intricacy, multitude of both real and made-up references to academic and popular culture, and layered emotional conflict, Randall's reduction of the House of Leaves to the (International) House of Pancakes cuts a humorous edge to a dark story. The tone of the comic parodies the tone of House of Leaves: lonely, fear-inducing, and increasingly insane, but using pancakes instead of darkness.

Additionally, the mysterious "Mohawk Girl" referred to in the comic may be a nod to the House of Leaves character Delial, or to 147: A Way So Familiar.

The word "house" is in blue in every instance, which is a stylistic attribute of Mark Z. Danielewski's novel. Every Minotaur reference is marked out in red ink, and every use of "house" or a foreign language's equivalent, such as 'Haus' and 'maison' is in blue. This is not a reference to hyperlinks. It is often thought that the house is printed in blue because houses have 'blueprints.'

The censored portion of the Big Steak Omelette is "...fresh green peppers, onions, mushrooms,..." per IHOP's website for the Big Steak Omelette: "Tender and tasty strips of steak, hash browns, fresh green peppers, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes and Cheddar cheese." Also, Omelette is misspelled, but that's probably just a typo.

The title text refers to the Waffle House, another US restaurant chain. The joke is that the protagonist has decided that maybe all this angst isn't worth it, and he'll just go to a different restaurant.

Clicking on the original comic links to the amazon.com page for House of Leaves.

From xkcd: volume 0:

This is a parody of the fascinating book House of Leaves.