2009-11-12
Original: 2009-11-12 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
The comic is a single circular diagram (a parody of the "March of Progress"/ascent-of-man evolutionary chart, here drawn as a closed loop) with no panels and almost no text. Figures are arranged in a clockwise cycle connected by curved arrows.
Starting at the top and going clockwise:
- Top: a nude man falling/tumbling headfirst (upside down).
- Upper right: a brown ape (orangutan-like) tumbling onto its back.
- Right: a reddish-brown orangutan standing upright, walking.
- Bottom right / bottom: a small brown mammal (a shrew-like early mammal) walking on all fours.
- Bottom left: a nude man with reddish hair, drunk and slumped, riding astride a large bomb (a nuclear/atomic bomb marked with the radiation trefoil symbol) and holding a bottle of champagne/wine. A speech bubble above him reads: "WOOH!"
- Left: a nude man drawn as an archer, mid-fall, holding a bow.
- Back to top.
The only lettered text in the main comic:
Drunk man on the bomb: "WOOH!"
Votey:
Two people sit watching (as if viewing the comic).
Person with longer hair and glasses: "REALLY? A DESCENT OF MAN JOKE?"
Person in front (shorter hair): "EVERY CARTOONIST DOES IT EVENTUALLY."
Starting at the top and going clockwise:
- Top: a nude man falling/tumbling headfirst (upside down).
- Upper right: a brown ape (orangutan-like) tumbling onto its back.
- Right: a reddish-brown orangutan standing upright, walking.
- Bottom right / bottom: a small brown mammal (a shrew-like early mammal) walking on all fours.
- Bottom left: a nude man with reddish hair, drunk and slumped, riding astride a large bomb (a nuclear/atomic bomb marked with the radiation trefoil symbol) and holding a bottle of champagne/wine. A speech bubble above him reads: "WOOH!"
- Left: a nude man drawn as an archer, mid-fall, holding a bow.
- Back to top.
The only lettered text in the main comic:
Drunk man on the bomb: "WOOH!"
Votey:
Two people sit watching (as if viewing the comic).
Person with longer hair and glasses: "REALLY? A DESCENT OF MAN JOKE?"
Person in front (shorter hair): "EVERY CARTOONIST DOES IT EVENTUALLY."
Alt text
Main comic: a circular evolution diagram parodying the classic "ascent of man" line-up, but drawn as an endless loop with arrows running clockwise. Around the circle are a tumbling nude man, an ape rolling onto its back, an upright orangutan, a small shrew-like early mammal, and a nude red-haired man slumped drunk while riding a nuclear bomb (marked with the radiation symbol), clutching a champagne bottle and shouting "WOOH!", then a nude man as a falling archer with a bow, looping back to the start. The joke: evolution doesn't progress upward, it circles back around to a drunk guy riding a doomsday bomb. Votey: two cartoonists sit watching. One with glasses says, "Really? A descent of man joke?" The other replies, "Every cartoonist does it eventually."
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.