2012-09-28

A tall, mock-newspaper-headline SMBC comic charting the rise and ruin of a scientist, panel by panel. Headline 1: 'MAN PRESENTS FIRST EVIDENCE OF GHOSTS,' subhead 'Acclaimed as greatest scientist of century.' Headline 2: 'MAN RECEIVES NOBEL FOR GHOSTLY DISCOVERY,' subhead 'Thanks his son for telling him.' Headline 3: 'MAN'S RESEARCH CALLED INTO QUESTION,' subhead quoting him: 'My boy said he heard a noise or something and that is ironclad proof of ghosts.' Headline 4: 'MAN'S RESEARCH NOT REPRODUCIBLE,' subhead 'Noise was probably just house creaking.' Headline 5: 'MAN LIVES LIFE OF SHAME AND HUMILIATION, UNABLE TO SHOW FACE IN PUBLIC,' subhead him pleading: 'I'm still human! I'm still like the rest of you! Please! Please!' Headline 6: 'MAN DIES IN GUTTER, BOTH FORGOTTEN AND DESPISED,' subhead 'Autopsy indicates profound disappointment in child's analytical powers.' The joke: a father built an entire celebrated scientific career on his young son's claim of hearing a ghost, then was destroyed when it didn't hold up. Votey: a black-bordered panel shows a sheet-draped 'ghost' with two dot eyes. A child has just been reassured there's no ghost in his closet ('Okay! Okay! There's probably not a ghost in my closet. See?' / 'Goodnight, son.'), and the sheeted ghost privately admits, 'He's right. I'm just a guy wearing a sheet.'