Given Questionable Content's length and the artist's interests, lots:
Anime and Manga
- Negi and Nodoka show up in the third panel of #656
. - In #720, Marten picks up a stop sign, saying he's "nowhere near effeminate or spiky-haired enough for this". This would be a reference to Durarara!!, but the anime didn't air till 2010 and this strip is from 2006.note
- In #1057, Pintsize says the roomba's power level is over 9000 after it defeats him.
- Several to Kiyohiko Azuma:
- Marigold has Yotsuba&! and Osaka posters in her room, and in "Magical Maidservant Mari-Chan", Marigold has a Sakaki-esque kawaii-gasm.
- You might miss the Azumanga Daioh shout-out here until you look at the title and watch the beginning of the show's opening. Even then, it's kind of subtle.
- Shelby the Great Pyrenees is drawn very similarly to Tadakichi-san.
- Marigold's hair in #1738 looks an awful lot like Chiyo-chan's.
- Emily's last name is "Azuma", she's as spaced-out as Osaka, as smart as Chiyo and as tall as Sakaki. When she cuts her hair it's in the same style as Kaorin's.
- In #2238, Emily asks Momo if her pigtails detach... She then asks if Momo stores roll cake in her arms, but that's a shout-out to a different anime.
- Marigold has Yotsuba&! and Osaka posters in her room, and in "Magical Maidservant Mari-Chan
- Marigold wearing a Haruhi Suzumiya sweatshirt and one of the people in line wearing a Death Note shirt. Another person has a Domo wallet.
- To Neon Genesis Evangelion when Dale pulls the Gendo pose. He's also a fan of Haruhi Suzumiya, going by the poster behind him.
- Marigold has a NERV messenger bag in #1523.
- Marigold has a NERV messenger bag in #1523
- Marigold wears a Totoro hat to the Nerd-Con as well.
- SAYONARA, SHELBY-SENSEI!
- The VespAvenger—a crazy girl on a Vespa who runs people down. Sounds familiar.
- Momo's original chassis is almost certainly a reference to Sumomo from Chobits.
- This comic appears to feature (third panel) a certain seven-year-old professor...
- Also note Marigold's ringtone.note
- The people with numbered caps (called 'Wooden Cubes') seem familiar.
- Emily asks Momo if she can store roll cake in her arms. Momo recognizes the reference, though Emily doesn't even know what anime is.
- Also note Marigold's ringtone
- One of the new chassis that Marigold and Momo look at is called the Izumi-04 and looks just like Konata Izumi.
- Emily has an Imagine Spot where she pictures Tai's hair a variety of different colors and styles. One of those styles is Super Saiyan.
- When Faye tries on Marigold's glasses in this strip, Angus looks decidedly like Light Yagami from Death Note. Even the book he's reading now looks like a Death Note!
- In #2495, you can see a poster with Alita in the background.
- Beeps strikes a pose identical to one in the opening to Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! complete with background pattern and color scheme. The page is even called Easy Breezy, the title of the theme song.
- When Marten confiscates Pintsize's samurai sword, he calls it "disarming Ogami Itto".
- Pintsize plays Spaceman Spiff in this guest comic.
- Wonder Woman: In the comic titled "Wonder Woman" Hanners arrives at the party in an invisible experimental aircraft equipped with AI capable of piloting itself, just like Wondy's robot plane in the original comics.
- Comic 1051 has a reference to Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome in Faye's chants of "Two girls enter, one girl leaves!"
- Marten mentions watching a show about musical instrument manufacturers in #1054.
- Comic 1999 has an AnthroPC breaking out into song. Said song is a parody of the lyrics to the song of the movie of the same name: The Sound of Music.
- "Mawwage! Twue wuv!"
- Hannelore's dad in #2145:Drat, I was hoping I'd finally get to test out the paranormal containment unit I designed back in '84.
- In #1007, Pintsize alters the tagline from Alien ("In space, no one can hear you scream") to "In space, no one can hear you groan" (because pun).
- Faye can neither confirm or deny whether the line is a reference to Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, which came out a week before the strip.
- There is one to Discworld. Hannelore mumbles part of Foul Ole Ron's catchphrase.
- Said catchphrase ("Millennium hand and shrimp") is itself a Shout-Out to They Might Be Giants, taking this up to eleven.
- Angus is reading a book by Jim Butcher.
- Ia, ia, Hannelore fhtagn.
- Dune:
- I must not laugh. Laughter is the Marten-killer. Laughter is the little death that brings about total obliteration by an enraged Faye...
- After Marten's Mom, on the way out, gave Faye a final warning about how things were going to be.
Marten:I think today went pretty well. Mom seemed to like you
Faye: Sheesh are you kidding? Today was like the test of the Mom Jabbar.
Marten: That was simultaneously one of the best Dune references and worst puns I have ever heard.Faye: No boy enjoys comparative analysis of his parts and an Arrakian sandworm while he's in the act.- When Hannelore has a Pregnancy Scare, she suggests she might have been artificially inseminated to create the Kwisatz Haderach.
- Steve and Marten's discussion of Marten's facial hair turns into a discussion of Dune cosplay for Halloween. Steve wants to go as Sting playing Feyd-Rautha.
- When Hanners storms into her mother’s office and scares everyone else out with just a few words their reaction invokes the book, which Jeph lampshades in the comment for anyone who didn’t get it. (“DUNE JOKE”)
Accountant 1: She has the Voice!
Accountant 2: The Weirding Way! - I must not laugh. Laughter is the Marten-killer. Laughter is the little death that brings about total obliteration by an enraged Faye...
- Hell, Jacques even works a reference to "The Cask of Amontillado" in #1123.
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
- "Script by Cassandra Clare". This was done in return for Clare writing in a QC reference in City of Lost Souls, in which she had Simon Lewis wear a "Clearly I Have Made Some Bad Decisions" T-shirt.
- When Marten's attempt to make a speech at his dad's wedding completely tanks, Claire snarks "Nice one, Cicero."
- This strip's title is a reference to Snow Crash's Raven.
- This strip has some fun lampshading how little a role Sven has played recently, with the Alt Text of "What was his name again? Svan? Svorn? Seivarden?"
- A possible one in this strip, where Yay gleefully suggests that they could emulate one of Ebenezer McCoy's most infamous and awesome moments... on Aurelia's shitty ex-husband.
- Marten Tiberius Reed. A Star Trek reference or maybe Stephen T. Colbert?
- Marten refers to Clinton as "Tom Servo" during one particular moment of creepiness.
- In the fifth panel of #2791, Claire models a certain ruffled dress from Firefly.
- Pintsize built some kind of computer that used Jack Bauer's login to access US nuclear missiles. Hannelore smashed it in time (Pintsize built it so Hannelore could save the world as a birthday present).
- Faye calling people "assbutt" may or may not be a reference to Castiel of Supernatural.
- The comment for this strip gives a nod to Look Around You.What are furries? We just don't know.
- In the rant on this strip, Jeph quotes the chorus of "The Daves I Know" from Kids in the Hall.
- Strip #1206 features Hannelore singing the Music/Battles song "Atlas".
- Strip #2112 is entitled Try Not To Rush.
- Claire models the infamous swan dress.
- Sven describes his personal music project as a "King Crimson meets Scott Joplin progressive ragtime masterpiece". Despite Dora's incredulous aversion to the whole idea, this may in fact be a Genius Bonus joke, as it's a fair description of King Crimson's song "Ladies of the Road"—suggesting that even when Sven tries to be original, he isn't.
- Apparently, Faye likes to accompany the spectacle of Bubbles putting on her leggings with a vocal rendition of the opening of Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra.
- One of the Cubetown employees, Reeves Gabrels, is named after a guitarist who was a long-term collaborator of David Bowie. Gender-flipped here becase Reeves is female.
- "The PX-3500 has dual ERPPCs and six medium lasers. It is NICE."
- Later comics would show that A.I. bodies use Myomer as musculature.
- Later comics would show that A.I. bodies use Myomer
- This page is one to Warcraft.
- A subtle reference to Metal Gear Solid in this strange lady's singing.
- A minor character by the name of Francis York appears.
- The mother from #3471 bears a resemblance to Sadayo Kawakami.
- Page 5009 is a reference not only to Lobotomy Corporation, but specifically TeeQueue's Let's Play of it, featuring two of his characters, Mizu and Bishop (though the former's Today's Shy Look isn't covering her entire face as it does in canon, but just her mouth like a face mask).
- xkcd:
- Marigold has an xkcd T-Shirt.
- There's a large crate marked "CAUTION" in the background of this strip. The Alt Text explains that the crate contains a large bobcat.
- Two Narbonic characters (Helen B. Narbon and Dave Davenport) appear in the first panel of #543.
- Kimiko Ross, Red Robot, and Eve make an appearance in #1421.
- #1391, covering eight different Webcomics.
- Jeph's newspost for this comic says that it must be Depressing Comic Week at QC.
- There are several panels featuring Jeph's webcomic artist friends from the Northampton area walking by in the background.
- Davan and Nancy show up in this strip.
- There's a Red Robot, Geth and a Konata chassis for sale in #1998, which is even called "Robocameos". And the shop itself is called Idoru.
- Homestuck
- If you look at the Hot Topic in the background of #1966, you can see a poster advertising troll horns.
- Marigold is wearing Karkat's Cancer-symbol shirt in comic 2275.
- If you look at the Hot Topic in the background of #1966
- A poster with a panel from this strip of Jerkcity is sometimes seen.
- A guest comic involving Deep-Immersion Gaming has Faye's rogue shouting "Sneak attack, bitch!"
- In this strip, discussing dinosaur anatomy summons Dina Saruyama .
- When May's battery runs out after she hooks up with Sven, and Sven looks up the internet to see what he can do about it, he notes that "there's an Er1-Ka Muon comic about it", a nod to Erika Moen's sexuality webcomic Oh Joy Sex Toy. (Er1-Ka Muon's work previously appeared in a guest comic by Moen herself.)
- When Pintsized has a pigeon nesting in his mouth, the newspost says "Guest-starring City Face".
- Amy and Shelley from John Allison's Scary-Go-Round are in the background of the first frame of this page. note
Web Original
- Homestar Runner:
- I can do it! I can totally do it nine times!
- May says if she does anything illegal, she'll be back in Robot Jail before you can say "baleeted".
- Emily's expanding cardigan cube is yellow with black markings. Jeph adds in the commentary "If you tickle it, it turns into The Cheat."
- I can do it!
- Barry wears a "Dogs should be able to vote!" hat in #3248
- To Weebl & Bob (more specifically, Team Laser Explosion) in #382.
- Marigold has been shown wearing a "This Troper" T-shirt on Jeph's Tumblr.
- Strip 4450 has Gawr Gura and Oozora Subaru in the background chasing down a duck.
- Strip 4644 has more members of hololive show up, that being Ouro Kronii and Nanashi Mumei.
- Strip 4807 has Emmett wearing a shirt with a Takodachi on it.
- Hel-LOOO, Nurse!
- One of the holograms that Station makes to amuse Marigold, Hannelore, and Marten is a flying pony.
Other/multiple
- This is what happens when Jeph tries to get every anime/RPG reference out of his system at once.
- The "sympathetic party" who offers to help Bubbles recover her memories starting in 3391 is pretty clearly based on Anonymous. Their appearance is also very similar to Desire of The Endless or the cover art of Duran Duran's Rio album.
- When Melon and Yay Newfriend want to demonstrate to Roko their different ways of communicating with each other, Melon's speech bubble consists of the waveform of the old dial-up connection tone and Yay's speech bubble consists of the waveform of the white noise that ensued when you'd made a connection. Jeph's comment is "Only 90s kids will recognise this waveform."
- There's a Genius Bonus one in this one: when Faye snarks at Sam "Go finish your sprays, Gentileschi," it's a reference to 17th century Italian artist Artemisia Gentileschi, who became somewhat notorious for her amazingly gory pictures of the biblical story of Judith beheading Holofernes. Jeph references this.
