2011-08-18
Original: 2011-08-18 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Boy: GRAMPA... HOW'D YOU GET SO OLD???
Grandpa: WELL...
(The grandfather begins to recount/relive his story. A younger man in a green shirt and glasses appears in a dark red-walled space, looking uneasy.)
(Two looming shadowy monstrous figures rise on either side of the man. The left figure is labeled "NATURE," the right figure is labeled "NURTURE.")
Label (left figure): NATURE
Label (right figure): NURTURE
(Wordless sequence: the two shadow-monsters seize, batter, and crush the man over several panels as he is thrown around, beaten down, and overwhelmed, his face contorting in pain and exhaustion until he ages into the white-haired grandfather.)
Final panel (back to the present, framed scene):
Grandpa (to the boy): ENJOY YOUR REMAINING 70 YEARS.
Votey:
A large dark-green hooded/cloaked shape looms. A speech bubble reads: BOO.
Boy: GRAMPA... HOW'D YOU GET SO OLD???
Grandpa: WELL...
(The grandfather begins to recount/relive his story. A younger man in a green shirt and glasses appears in a dark red-walled space, looking uneasy.)
(Two looming shadowy monstrous figures rise on either side of the man. The left figure is labeled "NATURE," the right figure is labeled "NURTURE.")
Label (left figure): NATURE
Label (right figure): NURTURE
(Wordless sequence: the two shadow-monsters seize, batter, and crush the man over several panels as he is thrown around, beaten down, and overwhelmed, his face contorting in pain and exhaustion until he ages into the white-haired grandfather.)
Final panel (back to the present, framed scene):
Grandpa (to the boy): ENJOY YOUR REMAINING 70 YEARS.
Votey:
A large dark-green hooded/cloaked shape looms. A speech bubble reads: BOO.
Alt text
A tall vertical SMBC comic. In the first panel a small boy asks his white-haired grandfather, "GRAMPA... HOW'D YOU GET SO OLD???" and the grandfather replies, "WELL..." The comic then shifts into a dark, red-walled dreamlike flashback: a younger version of the man, in a green shirt and glasses, stands looking anxious. Two enormous shadowy monster figures rise up on either side of him, labeled "NATURE" on the left and "NURTURE" on the right. Over a wordless sequence of panels the two monsters grab, beat, slam, and crush the man, throwing him around and grinding him down as his face twists in pain, until he is worn into the old white-haired grandfather. In the final framed panel, back in the present, the grandfather looks at the boy and says flatly, "ENJOY YOUR REMAINING 70 YEARS." The joke: getting old is being relentlessly battered by nature and nurture, and the grandfather grimly passes that fate on to the child. Votey (bonus panel): a large dark-green hooded, cloaked shape looms, with a speech bubble saying "BOO."
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.