2012-03-25

A seven-panel SMBC comic. A bald priest in a black clerical collar prays, asking God, "God... why do bad things happen to good people?" God, speaking from a glowing yellow speech bubble, replies, "What?" then explains that the average person has a solid life that's been getting better almost every year since the beginning. The priest pushes back: "Sure, but... wait, are you just taking average human welfare without checking the individual variance." God starts to answer, "Yeah, so? How would that" before the lettering abruptly turns large and panicked: "HOLY SHIT." Over the next two panels God's speech is huge frantic handwriting as he apparently checks the data for the first time: "Oh man! Ah! Wow! 100,000 years of... WOW!!" and "Oh jeez. Oh holy shit Africa. Ohh shit, the Jews." The final panel, captioned "Later...", shows the priest at a pulpit telling his congregation, "The Lord works in mysterious ways." The joke: God never realized how much suffering there was until the priest made him look at the variance. In the black-and-white votey aftercomic, a figure warns God, "Don't look up 'tsunami,'" and God, mid-question, reacts: "What's a ts- HOLY SHIT."