2011-12-23

A smiling middle-aged man with curly hair, glasses, a gray suit and red tie leans toward a dark-haired woman (seen from behind) in a bar-like setting. His speech bubble reads: "Hey baby, this pickup line is recursive. The 'hey' is short for 'hey baby, this pickup line is recursive. The ''hey'' is short for ''hey baby this pickup line is recursive. The..." -- the line endlessly nesting itself in quotes. A caption below reads: "Benoit Mandelbrot: Master of seduction." The joke names the mathematician famous for fractals (self-similar, infinitely recursive shapes), whose pickup line is itself an infinitely recursive fractal. Votey (bonus panel): the same man, sketchily drawn, says: "I'm gonna videotape us doing it while we watch a video of us doing it while we watch a video..." -- another infinitely nested recursion.