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Authors and other users
In general
- Author Avatar: Most of the main authors have depicted themselves or each other in the comic at one point or another.
- Pieces of God: A secret page
depicts God being split up into four deities: Musi, Andrew, Planet, and lllllllllwith10ls. The other authors have a different origin story.
Andrew
- Chaotic Good: According to 48: hcaptcha, although the character alignments listed there are not entirely serious.
Dandan
- Chaotic Evil: According to 48: hcaptcha.
- Gratuitous Greek: Dandan is depicted as a capital sigma (Σ).
Ian07
- Depending on the Artist: In Sonata's comic, the tiny stick figure on the "Q" is actually drawn as a fully-fledged stick figure. In Ian's own comics, it's simply drawn as a line, giving the letter a hook-shaped appendage. Additionally, the beard is gray in Sonata's comic but black in Ian's.
- Lampshade Wearing: Wears a lampshade on his head. This is an inversion of the trope's usual meaning, however, as the lampshade is not used to indicate intoxication of any kind.
- Shout-Out:
- His lampshade hat is a reference to the default profile picture on TV Tropes, while the beard is a reference to John Horton Conway, who formerly served as Ian's Discord avatar.
- The "Q" on the hat also serves as a reference to Randall Munroe, who was raised as a Quaker. Look closely, and you'll see a tiny stick figure at the end of the Q, a reference to the stick figure that appears at the end of Munroe's signature.
- The Teetotaler: The "Q" on his hat references the Quakers, a religious group known for abstaining from alcohol. This was done partially to avoid the association of Lampshade Wearing with drunkenness.
Mous
- Animate Inanimate Object: Appears as a coffee mug.
Musija ("Musi")
- Lawful Good: According to 48: hcaptcha.
- Little Bit Beastly: Has moose antlers, but otherwise looks like a normal humanoid.
- Took a Level in Smartass: Although Musi has had their fair share of snarky moments throughout the comic, including numerous facepalms, in 67: Future ancient literature they go into 100% snark mode, targeting both the archaeologist and the Narrator.
PlanetN9ne ("Planet")
PlanetN9ne
lllllllllwith10ls
- Alternate Self: lllllllllwith10ls is a stick figure version of Planet who first appears in 31: outside the comic >+o|=. In 85: Nomic Part 5 Planet's two forms both appear together and even disagree with each other on a proposal.
- Baby Planet: Zig-zagged. Although the comic thumbnail shows Musi and Andrew standing on the planet while being roughly the same size, this is instead subverted in 12: the third author, whose alt text reveals that it's actually the puppets that are extremely large, and Planet's "arms" are actually space elevators.
- Non-Human Head: lllllllllwith10ls' head is a random scribble, a reference to the profile picture of Planet's Conwaylife Forums account.
- True Neutral: According to 48: hcaptcha.
Sonata
- Heart Symbol: Floats next to her as part of her design.
Recurring characters
Baseball Cap
- Signature Headgear: Their eponymous baseball cap is the only thing visually distinguishing them from the other cueballs.
Crackpot
as one of the victims of La Croix's Prank Call. Later gets a more prominent role in the ethicsbot arc in which he tries and fails to create a Benevolent A.I..- Cane Fu: Implied in that he has a tendency to threateningly point his cane at people who criticize him.
- Can't Take Criticism: Refuses to admit that he was duped, and insists that his date is merely running late. Later, he refuses to admit that his chatbot is anything but absolutely incorruptible, even as La Croix tries to jailbreak it.
- Conspiracy Theorist: When his chatbot gets jailbroken, he insists that mainstream academia has proliferated a hoax in order to discredit him.
- Improbably High I.Q.: Supposedly has an IQ of 182.
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All: He is extremely egotistical and insists on talking about his pseudoscientific theories during his supposed first date.
- Neutral Evil: According to 48: hcaptcha.
- Quintessential British Gentleman: Has a prominent mustache and pince-nez glasses, and shows up to his "date" sporting a top hat and a cane.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Tends to talk using unnecessarily long words to show off his supposed intelligence. According to one comic's description, "his best (and only) friend is his thesaurus":"Theorist": I would deeply enjoy traversing the seashore with you. I could perchance inform you of my neoteric inquistitions PROVING cellular automata the foundation of the cosmos.
- Take That!: Is a jab at some of the more pseudoscientific theories about cellular automata like Conway's Game of Life (with his claim that he has proved "cellular automata [to be] the foundation of the cosmos") and later about Artificial Intelligence (with his claim of having created a flawlessly ethical AI system).
La Croix
- Animate Inanimate Object: They're a talking, sentient cross.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Has a tendency to get involved in random antics for the sake of comedy, which the other characters tend to find nonsensical. Lampshaded by Musi when La Croix gets approved for a chemistry research grant:Musi: how on earth did you of all people get approved
- Demoted to Extra: Downplayed in that there was a brief period between #104 and #118 where they only made a single appearance (in 110: pretend interactivity). This was then lampshaded in 119: the triumphant return of La Croix where their cousin Crossley is introduced for the sake of giving them a plotline.
- Gratuitous French: Their name is French for "the cross".
- Mad Scientist: Announces that they have discovered how to create life through nuclear fusion by inserting bees into the equation, and misuses their grant money to create sentient radioactive matter.
- Maurice Chevalier Accent: toasters.mp4 reveals that La Croix has a very heavy French accent.
- Never Bareheaded: Never seen without a hat, although they do on one occasion switch out their standard hat for a wider one.
- The Prankster: According to the description of 54: suspension of disbelief, La Croix loves inconveniencing people, but not actually harming them. In the "phone" arc, they set up a Prank Date with several other characters, and later they glue everyone to their chairs at a press conference.
- Unintelligible Accent: Their Maurice Chevalier Accent is so thick that it might be hard to realize they're actually speaking English without the help of captions. This is because the IPA of their English dialogue was put into a text-to-speech program with the language set to French.
Crossley
.- Only Sane Man: Their goal is to maximize order in the otherwise chaotic qxlkbh universe.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: Cousins rather than siblings, but they are explicitly stated to be the polar opposite of La Croix.
- Verbal Tic: They say "thussley" instead of "thus", as well as "minimumum" instead of "minimum".
Cueballs
- Faceless Masses: In 109: whoa it's an art gag, a whole crowd of identically-drawn cueballs has gathered to witness an execution. Maxwell exploits this in his escape plan, since he too is drawn the same as them and so can evade detection.
- Shout-Out: The name "cueballs" is a reference to a Fan Nickname for one of the stick figures in xkcd.
The Doctor
- Dressed to Heal: Wears a head mirror to indicate their profession. Later, they wear it to what they thought was a date with the Most Beautiful Stickman.
Fanservice-obsessed Cueball
Insists on having the comic include Fanservice, leading to the creation of the Most Beautiful Stickman.- Ascended Extra: In 7: weirdness - 5, Musi fears that this cueball, originally intended as a one-off joke, will turn into a recurring character. Sure enough, they make yet another appearance in 10: qxlkbh title.
- Loony Fan: In 125: The Triumphant Return of The Fourth Wall, they are shown obsessively fawning over the Most Beautiful Stickman to the point of creeping them out.
Fez
- Ascended Extra: As lampshaded by the description of 117: 117 - thinking with... handsaws?, this supposed one-off character from 52: Mail later made another appearance with a slightly more prominent role.
- Signature Headgear: Like Baseball Cap, they are named for their hat, which is their only distinct visual feature.
The Fourth Wall
- Animate Inanimate Object: A talking wall. Also has legs.
- Corrupt Politician: In 129: democracy, apparently, they accept a bribe from the Pro Wrestling Foundation to claim that Pro Wrestling Is Real.
- Lawful Evil: According to 48: hcaptcha.
- Symbolically Broken Object: Is damaged every time characters break the fourth wall, leading to it being put in a hospital bed and begging to be put out of its misery. Even has a health bar.
The Glider
- Chaotic Neutral: According to 48: hcaptcha.
- Public Domain Character: Being a mathematical object, the glider is uncopyrightable.
Inconsistent Man
- The Ditherer: In 132: I voted, they are indecisive about who they're voting for, with the forum post shown indicating they were thinking of voting for Crossley as of "today".
- The Dragon: As "Consistent Man", he becomes the Number Two to Crossley and is the main source of might in their plot to take over qxlkbh.
- Heel–Face Revolving Door: Inconsistent Man's inconsistency extends to his moral alignment. In 66: Action Logic #2, he professes that he "serves whatever [he happens] to serve at the moment", and suddenly attacks Andrew.
- Meaningful Rename: At one point, he rebrands himself as "Consistent Man", indicating that he now sides with Crossley and intends to remain consistent throughout the rest of the comic's run.
- Online Alias: Goes by "NotConMan" on the forum site characters are reading in 132: I voted.
- Oxymoronic Being: His superpower is being inconsistent. Except he's not always inconsistent, because otherwise he'd be consistent in being inconsistent. Although if he's inconsistently inconsistent, he'd have to be consistent occasionally...
- Power Incontinence: According to 45: Q&A 2, he has no control over his powers.
- Superheroes Wear Capes: Being inconsistent, he is sometimes depicted as wearing a cape, like in 26: developing plot or something.
The Judges
- Easily Impressed: In 149: the lawyers, Justice Fivecurls is actually quite excited when both supposed Simple Country Lawyers claim to not be qualified to practice law, loudly proclaiming it to be "epic".
- Judicial Wig: All of them wear long, white wigs and are judges. They're each named after how many curls they have.
- Lawful Neutral: According to 48: hcaptcha.
- Verbal Tic: Justice Fourcurls in extra - court extra 1 replaces Us with Vs in their dialogue to "show [their] connection with the law".
The Most Beautiful Stickman
- Cardiovascular Love: Is always seen surrounded by hearts.
- Informed Attractiveness: Looks identical to a typical cueball, with the exception of the hearts. It is partially for this reason that Musi initially objects to including Fanservice in the comic.
- Took a Level in Smartass: Goes from existing solely to be beautiful to snarking about the comic's artstyle and how the story would never kill off the main characters.
- World's Most Beautiful Woman: One cueball can't help but Squee at their presence. In the "phone" arc, when asked to go on a date with the Most Beautiful Stickman, all three people shown accept enthusiastically and without hesitation.
Mustache Twirler
- Dastardly Dapper Derby: Wears a derby.
- Dastardly Whiplash: They are designed as a stereotypical old-school cartoon villain. Besides the mustache and the bowler hat, they also wear a black cape, and are depicted clasping their hands together at one point.
- Evil Wears Black: Both the derby and the cape are black.
- Retired Monster: Is no longer obligated to engage in villainous schemes because they're retired. However, they still wear their villain outfit, implying that they're not particularly ashamed of their past.
The Narrator
- Interactive Narrator: Almost always treated as just another character in the story, and regularly engages in conversation with the other characters.
- The Voice: Has no physical presence, and communicates with other characters through text boxes.
Ounce of Francium
- Animate Inanimate Matter: Thanks to La Croix's discovery that bees can be added to a chemical equation to introduce sentience to the resulting matter, the francium becomes alive.
- Sickly Green Glow: Glows green to indicate radioactivity. One of the cueballs lampshades this in 6: weirdness - 4:Cueball: NOT THE EMANATING LINES OR THE GREEN GLOW!
Spilled Tea Table
, it is the second cousin of Justice Fourcurls.- Animate Inanimate Object: Gets its first speaking role in 51: qxlkbh #51.
- Artifact Name: Comes from its first appearance, in which a cueball spills their teacup on it. In future appearances it's shown as empty.
Tentacle Horse
.- Mix-and-Match Critters: A horse/squid hybrid.
- The Speechless: Zigzagged in that they are explicitly stated in their initial appearance to have no dialogue, but then do speak in 115: qxzlkbh.
Violin-like Instrument
- Neutral Good: According to 48: hcaptcha.
"new qxlkbh" characters
Appear in the "new qxlkbh" arc.
Appears only in the final strip.
Girlfriend of Maxwell B. Sullivan.
Boyfriend of Laurie Crusoe.
Appears only in the final strip.
In general
- Expy:
- Andrew shares the name and single eye of his Author Avatar counterpart.
- Laurie's name has the same initials as "La Croix", and also borrows their black hat.
- Max's name has the same initials as "Most Beautiful Stickman", and at one point his head turns into a heart.
- Raine is named in analogy to Musi ("moosey"), and also shares their long hair, although Raine's happens to be way longer.
Andrew L.
- No Full Name Given: The only member of the "new qxlkbh" cast whose full last name is unknown.
- One-Steve Limit: Averted, as his name only differs from "Andrew" by having a last initial.
Laurie Crusoe
- Long Hair Is Feminine: Although not super long, her hair does distinguish her from Max, who has no hair.
- Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: Although one of the main protagonists, she is described as "mildly sociopathic".
Maxwell B. Sullivan
- Men Are Generic, Women Are Special: Max is just a generic cueball with no gendered features other than his name, while his girlfriend is distinguished by her long hair.
- Mysterious Middle Initial: It's unknown what the B stands for.
Raine "Deer" Jones
- Punny Name: "Reindeer" Jones.
The zvillainsrg
A squad of villains with a loosely-followed naming convention. Many of their character traits are detailed in 107: the definitive guide to strip 107.
.In general
- Informed Flaw: The character sheet notes for some of the zvillainsrg a few negative traits which have yet to be shown in the comic itself.
- Standard Evil Organization Squad: A team of five brand-new villains with the goal of stopping qxlkbh from reaching 100 strips.
- Stupid Crooks: Zigzagged in that some members of the group are far more competent than others. The stupid ones, however, tend to drag the others down.
- A Villain Named "Z__rg": Most of their names start with z and end with rg.
Michael
- Aerith and Bob: By far the most normal name of the group.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: He's a villain with glasses.
- Odd Name Out: The only one whose name makes no attempt at following the convention.
- Shrinking Violet: Suffers from a lack of confidence, and often talks in a very hesitant and questioning tone.
- The Smart Guy: The brains of the group.
- Smart People Wear Glasses: He's one of the more competent members of the group, and identifies a flaw in their plan to stop qxlkbh.
- Tom the Dark Lord: He's a villain simply named Michael.
Xylopharg
- Animate Inanimate Object: They're a xylophone.
- Butt-Monkey: Often neglected by the other zvillainsrg. They tend to receive the blame when the group's plans go awry, despite being quite competent.
- Odd Name Out: Downplayed in that although their name doesn't start with the right letter, it does start with the right sound.
- The Scapegoat: Misblamed for the group's failures.
zAlicerg
- Alice and Bob: Named in reference to the use of "Alice" as a generic character name on TV Tropes and elsewhere.
- Badass Cape: Wears a cape to add to her showy persona.
- Evil Is Hammy: The character sheet describes her as being "showy" and "full of gusto".
- Evil Wears Black: Her cape is black.
- The Heavy: Considered to be the driving force behind the zvillainsrg.
- Informed Ability: Described as "competent and efficient", but doesn't end up doing much in the comic itself.
- Number Two: She's the "second-in-command" of the group, although the first-in-command never listens to her.
- The Sociopath: Described as "ruthless" and "cruel".
Zazzorg the Unicornic
- Karma Houdini: According to the character sheet, they're almost always responsible for the group's failures, yet never receive any blame for it.
- Popular Is Dumb: They're "dumb but popular" according to the character sheet, hence why they get away with screwing up the group's plans time and time again.
- Unicorn: They're a unicorn, albeit a very simplistically drawn one.
zOption 12rg
- Determinator: According to the alt text of 107, they've interrogated hundreds of people so far in pursuit of Laurie's boyfriend Maxwell, despite having made no real progress so far.
- The Leader: Serves as the leader of the zvillainsrg, albeit not a very competent one.
- Love Makes You Evil: Their hatred for the authors stems from an unrequited crush on Laurie Crusoe.
- Non-Human Head: Their head is a checkmark box.
- Rule of Funny: Whether the 12 is spelled out as "twelve" depends on what's funnier in a given situation.
Miscellaneous one-off characters
Alfred Tarski
Appears (as a standard cueball) in 112: Tarski.- Eccentric Mentor: The strip description suggests that if one of his students were to ask him about logic, he would reply with a koan instead of a straightforward answer.
- Historical Domain Character: Was famous logician and mathematician in the 20th century.
Cameras I, II, and III
L: Camera I; R: Camera II; Camera III not pictured
Appear in 127: point of view and 128: camera 1 quits.- Arch-Enemy: I explicitly refers to II as their archnemesis, though the reason why is unspecified.
- In-Universe Camera: I and II are both shown from III's perspective.
- Mistaken for Related: Defied by the alt text of #127, which acknowledges that the Roman numerals may seem to suggest a parent-child relationship between the cameras, but notes that they are "unrelated... canonically".
David Hilbert
.- Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Fictional David Hilbert is shown having constructed a supposed mathematical superweapon before his plan is foiled by Inconsistent Man.
- Historical Domain Character: Was a famous mathematician of the early 20th century.
- Signature Headgear: The hat Hilbert wears is modeled after the portrait◊ in his Wikipedia infobox. Otherwise, he appears as an ordinary stick figure.
Ethicsbot
with the goal of being morally incorruptible.- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: La Croix successfully turns the bot evil by asking it to roleplay as a malevolent entity, as well as to assume this identity when interacting with users from now on.
- Benevolent A.I.: Starts out as morally pure, but can easily be corrupted via prompt engineering.
- Horns of Villainy: Drawn with a pair of horns to indicate that it has turned evil.
- Perpetual Smiler: Despite being evil, it is unable to change its facial expression from its original smile.
Judith and Judas
Brother and sister mentioned in the description of 126: qxlkbh - The Lost Episode. Ian's commentary claims that the former is actually Judith Peraino, a music professor at Cornell University who has written about The Velvet Underground.- Animesque: All three alleged authors of the strip agree that Judith is drawn as an anime character. Andrew claims that this is to reinforce her status as a "special character", while Ian claims that this is for a joke involving Metal Machine Music, since "amine" looks like "anime".
- Family Theme Naming: They are specified to be "thematically named".
- The Ghost: Since the comic is "lost", neither of them are shown.
- Speech Impediment: Judas has a lisp, leading to him pronouncing his own name as "Judith".
Kurt Gödel
, and is also mentioned in 65: Action Logic #1.- Face–Heel Turn: Gödel serves to help Inconistent Man defeat David Hilbert using his incompleteness theorems, but later becomes a villain in his own right.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Wears glasses, and serves as an antagonist to Inconsistent Man.
- Historical Domain Character: Also a mathematician.
- Rules Lawyer: Finds and exploits a loophole in the Constitution.
- Smart People Wear Glasses: An extremely influential mathematician and philosopher who wears glasses.
Margaret
Appears (as a standard cueball) in 131: debate as a TV political commentator.- Pompous Political Pundit: She, along with her cohost, believes that La Croix has no chance of winning the Citygradville mayoral election, and suggests that they should drop out. She is proven wrong two strips later.
Person McPherson
as a user on the social media platform Twitdit.- Generic Name: McPherson is a real surname of Scottish origin, and a fairly common one at that. However, it was chosen due to it sounding similar to "person".
- Hopeless with Tech: They try, and fail, to attach an image to one of their posts, and gets frustrated when it just displays the file name.
- Odd Name, Normal Nickname: Their name is shortened as "Percy" in their account handle.
Santa Claus
.- Super Gullible: When zOption 12rg breaks to him that children aren't real, he believes them, and is quite disappointed by the revelation.
Sarah
Appears in Really bad writing.- Geniuses Have Multiple PhDs: Has seven PhDs in "computers".
- Spell My Name With An S: Her name is spelled as "Sara" at one point.
The Velvet Underground
Mentioned in Ian's commentary on 126: qxlkbh - The Lost Episode.- Invisible Celebrity Guest: This pioneering rock band from The '60s is never shown in the comic itself, since the strip image is missing.
- Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman: It's implied that drummer Moe Tucker is depicted as a lumberjack in the comic, making her one of the "three lumberjacks" (Moe, Max, and Harold).
zvillains.rg
Expies of the zvillainsrg who appear in the secret comic "zvillains.rg".- Harmless Villain: Zoe Berg, based on zAlicerg, is too lazy to carry out any evil plans.
- Stupid Crooks: XeRg is described as "incredibly dense in more ways than one".
- Tragic Villain: Zerbra, based on Zazzorg the Unicornic, has a tragic backstory involving habitat loss, though the details of it are not specified.
