2: Petit Trees (sketch)

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Petit Trees (sketch)
"Petit" being a reference to Le Petit Prince, which I only thought about halfway through the sketch
Title text: "Petit" being a reference to Le Petit Prince, which I only thought about halfway through the sketch


This comic does not present a particular point; it is just a picture drawn by Randall.

The Little Prince (in French Le Petit Prince) is a novella written by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in 1943, about the titular Little Prince, who lives on an asteroid and visits other inhabited asteroids and eventually the Earth. The book is filled with drawings of the asteroid, the prince, and the travels they make. It is noted how, on occasion, baobab trees can begin to grow on these asteroids, and should they not be immediately uprooted, the growth of their roots would tear the asteroid apart. In this drawing, the roots are encircling the sphere, rather than piercing it, as Le Petit Prince describes.

The Little Prince has later been referenced both in 618: Asteroid and in 1350: Lorenz at the end of the space trip branch. It was also referenced to in the What If article Leap Seconds.


[Two trees are growing on opposite sides of a sphere.]


  • This was the 4th comic originally posted to LiveJournal.
  • Original title: "Le Petit"
  • Original Randall quote: "Another fairly old drawing that I scanned."
  • One of the original drawings drawn on checkered paper.



Randall says that he only thought of the reference to Le Petit Prince while he was drawing this picture. I think that it is likely that Randall was originally thinking of "pedigrees" and the tree structure of a genealogical chart. Since royalty is often descended from earlier royal ancestors, it would not be surprising that while drawing what was originally a pun, Randall thought of the book "Le Petit Prince." 16:55, 15 November 2019 (UTC)