2013-01-31

A vertical six-panel comic titled "A Short History of the Death of Culture." In each panel a person from a progressively earlier era complains that a new technology is ruining things, each blaming the very thing that defined the prior panel's golden age. Panel 1, a bearded modern man: "The internet is killing culture! Nobody can write anymore!" Panel 2, a man in a suit and tie: "Television is killing culture! Nobody talks to anyone anymore!" Panel 3, a Victorian man in a top hat: "The telegraph is killing culture! Nobody can use complete sentences anymore!" Panel 4, a man in a curly Baroque wig: "The printing press is killing culture! Nobody can think anymore!" Panel 5, a robed man in a toga: "Literacy is killing culture! Nobody can remember anything!" Panel 6, a wild-haired caveman: "Large cranium is killing culture! Nobody amused by airborne feces anymore!" The joke is that every generation declares the latest innovation the death of culture, all the way back to prehistory. Votey: Two spiky single-celled organisms float together while a lone cell below asks, "Sexual reproduction?" The pair replies, "Excuse me for appreciating tradition." Pushing the same nostalgia gag back to the origin of sex itself, asexual reproduction lamenting the new-fangled trend.