2011-03-30

A three-panel comic set in a dimly lit bar. A man in a green shirt approaches a woman in a blue shirt. Panel 1: he says, "Hi. I'd like you to temporarily relax your standards in exchange for money." She recoils and replies, "What? Creep." Panel 2: the man, looking mortified, says, "Oh god! Sorry! That came out wrong." Panel 3: smiling, he recovers with, "Can I buy you a drink?" The joke is that his clumsy pickup attempt is just a hyper-literal, transactional description of buying someone a drink. Votey: a sketchy black-and-white panel of the grinning man calling out, "Barkeep! An ethanol for the nice lady" - again reducing the gesture to its clinical chemical essence.