2012-08-03
Original: 2012-08-03 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Title: THE COLLEGE PARADOX
The comic is a single hand-drawn line graph. The vertical (y) axis is unlabeled. The horizontal (x) axis is labeled AGE, with tick marks at 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90.
A red curve and a blue curve are both plotted against age.
Red curve: starts very low at young ages, rises steeply to a sharp peak around age 20, drops down to a trough around middle age (roughly 40-50), then slowly rises again into old age.
Blue curve: starts at a moderate level, rises to a peak slightly before age 20, then declines steadily and continuously toward zero as age increases into old age.
Legend:
Red: CONFIDENCE IN RECEIVED WISDOM FROM A SMALL NUMBER OF BOOKS
Blue: REJECTION OF AUTHORITY
Votey:
Caption header: IN SHORT
Speech bubble: OLD MAN WEINER SHAKES HIS CANE AT YOU
Image: A long-haired figure (the cartoonist's self-caricature) with eyes closed and mouth open, brandishing a cane raised in one hand.
The comic is a single hand-drawn line graph. The vertical (y) axis is unlabeled. The horizontal (x) axis is labeled AGE, with tick marks at 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90.
A red curve and a blue curve are both plotted against age.
Red curve: starts very low at young ages, rises steeply to a sharp peak around age 20, drops down to a trough around middle age (roughly 40-50), then slowly rises again into old age.
Blue curve: starts at a moderate level, rises to a peak slightly before age 20, then declines steadily and continuously toward zero as age increases into old age.
Legend:
Red: CONFIDENCE IN RECEIVED WISDOM FROM A SMALL NUMBER OF BOOKS
Blue: REJECTION OF AUTHORITY
Votey:
Caption header: IN SHORT
Speech bubble: OLD MAN WEINER SHAKES HIS CANE AT YOU
Image: A long-haired figure (the cartoonist's self-caricature) with eyes closed and mouth open, brandishing a cane raised in one hand.
Alt text
A hand-drawn webcomic titled "THE COLLEGE PARADOX." It is a single line graph with no panels. The horizontal axis is labeled AGE, marked from 10 to 90. The vertical axis is unlabeled. Two curves are plotted. A red curve labeled "CONFIDENCE IN RECEIVED WISDOM FROM A SMALL NUMBER OF BOOKS" starts low, spikes sharply to a peak around age 20, dips to a low point in middle age, then slowly climbs again in old age. A blue curve labeled "REJECTION OF AUTHORITY" peaks just before age 20 and then steadily declines toward zero as age increases. The joke: both unquestioning confidence in a few books and rebellious rejection of authority peak around college age. Votey aftercomic: a panel headed "IN SHORT" with a speech bubble reading "OLD MAN WEINER SHAKES HIS CANE AT YOU," showing the long-haired cartoonist with mouth open angrily raising a cane.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.