2008-12-10
Original: 2008-12-10 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Title: THE ENGINEER PARADOX
Panel 1: Four men sit in a row of red movie theater seats. A man with orange/red hair complains while gesturing at the screen.
Red-haired man: "This movie is so DUMB. There's no way a plane could maneuver like that and not stall out."
A man with glasses and light hair: "Seriously."
A dark-skinned man in a blue shirt (raising a question to the others): "Doesn't anyone care about science? Anyone?"
A blond man in a green shirt sits at the end holding a tub of popcorn, looking unimpressed.
Panel 2: Caption "LATER...". Close-up of the same three men (red-haired, glasses, dark-skinned), now grinning with delight as they read books.
Book 1 (blue cover): "The Psychic Lords of Ravenblade"
Book 2 (pink cover): "Epoch of the Dino-Wizards"
Book 3 (green cover): "Breastica: Time Traveler from the Naked Future"
Votey:
Two panels showing a scene from one of the fantasy books. A muscular figure with wild hair and a spiked gauntlet brandishes a sword.
Sword-wielding figure: "We've got to destroy the Space Amazons' clothing so they'll flee in shame!"
A second figure (off-panel to the right): "Good! Then all their awkward, but math proficient sex slaves will be ours!"
Panel 1: Four men sit in a row of red movie theater seats. A man with orange/red hair complains while gesturing at the screen.
Red-haired man: "This movie is so DUMB. There's no way a plane could maneuver like that and not stall out."
A man with glasses and light hair: "Seriously."
A dark-skinned man in a blue shirt (raising a question to the others): "Doesn't anyone care about science? Anyone?"
A blond man in a green shirt sits at the end holding a tub of popcorn, looking unimpressed.
Panel 2: Caption "LATER...". Close-up of the same three men (red-haired, glasses, dark-skinned), now grinning with delight as they read books.
Book 1 (blue cover): "The Psychic Lords of Ravenblade"
Book 2 (pink cover): "Epoch of the Dino-Wizards"
Book 3 (green cover): "Breastica: Time Traveler from the Naked Future"
Votey:
Two panels showing a scene from one of the fantasy books. A muscular figure with wild hair and a spiked gauntlet brandishes a sword.
Sword-wielding figure: "We've got to destroy the Space Amazons' clothing so they'll flee in shame!"
A second figure (off-panel to the right): "Good! Then all their awkward, but math proficient sex slaves will be ours!"
Alt text
A two-panel SMBC comic titled "The Engineer Paradox." Panel 1: Four men sit in red theater seats. A red-haired man complains, "This movie is so DUMB. There's no way a plane could maneuver like that and not stall out," and a man in glasses agrees, "Seriously." A dark-skinned man asks, "Doesn't anyone care about science? Anyone?" A blond man at the end holds popcorn. Panel 2, captioned "LATER...": the same nitpicky men grin happily while reading absurd fantasy novels titled "The Psychic Lords of Ravenblade," "Epoch of the Dino-Wizards," and "Breastica: Time Traveler from the Naked Future" — the joke being that people who demand scientific realism in films happily devour ridiculous fantasy. Votey (black-and-white aftercomic): a muscular sword-wielding figure with a spiked gauntlet declares, "We've got to destroy the Space Amazons' clothing so they'll flee in shame!" and another voice replies, "Good! Then all their awkward, but math proficient sex slaves will be ours!" — a sample of the kind of book they're reading.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.