2011-12-21
Original: 2011-12-21 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Child (in bed): Dad! I'm scared to go to the bathroom because the bedmonster will grab my legs!
(The father stands silhouetted in the dark doorway.)
Panel 2:
Father: Son, you should treasure the dread you feel now. The older you get, the harder it is to lend credence to your imagination.
Panel 3:
Father: When I go back to my room, all I'm going to see is a cold half of a bed alongside a woman who's slowly become a stranger to me. If anything's under the bed, it's our midnight contemplations, compelled downward by their heaviness.
Panel 4:
Father: But you still have fear, and as long as you have fear you have hope, so don't ask me to cast out your fear. I've long since forgotten what it means to be afraid.
(The father leaves; we see him walking out the doorway. The child sits silently in bed.)
Panel 5:
Child: I think your dad needs to talk to someone.
(A green goblin-like monster is crouched beside the bed, having emerged from underneath it.)
Votey:
Close-up of the green bedmonster's face, wide-eyed and drooling, with one clawed hand at its mouth.
Child (in bed): Dad! I'm scared to go to the bathroom because the bedmonster will grab my legs!
(The father stands silhouetted in the dark doorway.)
Panel 2:
Father: Son, you should treasure the dread you feel now. The older you get, the harder it is to lend credence to your imagination.
Panel 3:
Father: When I go back to my room, all I'm going to see is a cold half of a bed alongside a woman who's slowly become a stranger to me. If anything's under the bed, it's our midnight contemplations, compelled downward by their heaviness.
Panel 4:
Father: But you still have fear, and as long as you have fear you have hope, so don't ask me to cast out your fear. I've long since forgotten what it means to be afraid.
(The father leaves; we see him walking out the doorway. The child sits silently in bed.)
Panel 5:
Child: I think your dad needs to talk to someone.
(A green goblin-like monster is crouched beside the bed, having emerged from underneath it.)
Votey:
Close-up of the green bedmonster's face, wide-eyed and drooling, with one clawed hand at its mouth.
Alt text
A five-panel SMBC comic in dark blue nighttime tones. Panel 1: a small red-haired child sits up in bed in a dark room and calls out, 'Dad! I'm scared to go to the bathroom because the bedmonster will grab my legs!' The father stands as a black silhouette in the doorway. Panel 2: a close-up of the father's grim face as he replies, 'Son, you should treasure the dread you feel now. The older you get, the harder it is to lend credence to your imagination.' Panel 3: the father continues, increasingly bleak: 'When I go back to my room, all I'm going to see is a cold half of a bed alongside a woman who's slowly become a stranger to me. If anything's under the bed, it's our midnight contemplations, compelled downward by their heaviness.' Panel 4: the father leans close, somber: 'But you still have fear, and as long as you have fear you have hope, so don't ask me to cast out your fear. I've long since forgotten what it means to be afraid.' Then he walks out through the doorway, leaving the child alone. Panel 5: the child sits in bed and says flatly, 'I think your dad needs to talk to someone' — and the joke reveal is that a real green goblin-like bedmonster is crouched right beside the bed, the very creature the kid was afraid of, now agreeing with him. The votey is a close-up of that green bedmonster's face: bug-eyed, fanged, and drooling, with a clawed hand near its mouth.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.