2011-08-29
Original: 2011-08-29 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1 (caption, orange banner): HOW YOU KNOW WHEN TO LEAVE THE MINE.
Scene: Two miners stand in a dark mine tunnel, wearing helmets with lamps. One miner holds up a birdcage containing a yellow canary, which is alive and standing. (The classic canary-in-a-coal-mine warning system.)
Panel 2 (caption, orange banner): HOW YOU KNOW WHEN TO LEAVE THE MOVEMENT.
Scene: A blonde woman with round glasses holds up a sheet of paper covered in tiny writing.
Woman (reading from the paper / speech bubble): YOU MAY ONLY HAVE SEX WITH THESE PEOPLE IN THESE WAYS FOR THESE REASONS.
Votey:
Off-panel voice: WHAT IF I WANT SEX TYPE 14-B?
The blonde woman (now smiling): 1681 SHAME POINTS.
Scene: Two miners stand in a dark mine tunnel, wearing helmets with lamps. One miner holds up a birdcage containing a yellow canary, which is alive and standing. (The classic canary-in-a-coal-mine warning system.)
Panel 2 (caption, orange banner): HOW YOU KNOW WHEN TO LEAVE THE MOVEMENT.
Scene: A blonde woman with round glasses holds up a sheet of paper covered in tiny writing.
Woman (reading from the paper / speech bubble): YOU MAY ONLY HAVE SEX WITH THESE PEOPLE IN THESE WAYS FOR THESE REASONS.
Votey:
Off-panel voice: WHAT IF I WANT SEX TYPE 14-B?
The blonde woman (now smiling): 1681 SHAME POINTS.
Alt text
A two-panel comic comparing two warning systems. Panel one, captioned 'HOW YOU KNOW WHEN TO LEAVE THE MINE,' shows two helmeted miners in a dark tunnel; one holds up a birdcage with a living yellow canary inside, the traditional sign that the air is still safe. Panel two, captioned 'HOW YOU KNOW WHEN TO LEAVE THE MOVEMENT,' shows a blonde woman in round glasses holding a paper densely covered in rules and declaring, 'You may only have sex with these people in these ways for these reasons.' The joke: an overly prescriptive list of sexual rules is the social-movement equivalent of a dead canary, a signal it's time to get out. In the black-and-white votey aftercomic, an off-panel voice asks, 'What if I want sex type 14-B?' and the woman, smiling, replies, '1681 shame points.'
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.