2013-09-23
Original: 2013-09-23 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Editor (a man with glasses and a mustache, seen in profile on the right): "It's uh... a lovely statement, Mr. Melville, but I'm going to remove the 'Like...' and change the spelling of 'Whoa.'"
Mr. Melville (a bearded man on the left, gesturing): "What? But that changes the whole meaning!"
Caption (below panel): There is wisdom that is woe.
Votey:
Editor: "Now, about this 'from hell's heart I fuck you up' line..."
Mr. Melville: "What?"
Editor (a man with glasses and a mustache, seen in profile on the right): "It's uh... a lovely statement, Mr. Melville, but I'm going to remove the 'Like...' and change the spelling of 'Whoa.'"
Mr. Melville (a bearded man on the left, gesturing): "What? But that changes the whole meaning!"
Caption (below panel): There is wisdom that is woe.
Votey:
Editor: "Now, about this 'from hell's heart I fuck you up' line..."
Mr. Melville: "What?"
Alt text
A two-panel comic. Main panel: an editor with glasses and a mustache, shown in profile, tells a bearded man, 'It's uh... a lovely statement, Mr. Melville, but I'm going to remove the "Like..." and change the spelling of "Whoa."' The bearded man (Herman Melville) protests with a gesture, 'What? But that changes the whole meaning!' A caption below reads 'There is wisdom that is woe.' The joke is that an editor is mundanely nitpicking spelling and a filler word in what is implied to be a profound literary line, treating 'Like... Whoa' as the original statement. Votey (aftercomic): the editor continues, 'Now, about this "from hell's heart I fuck you up" line...' (a crude rewrite of Moby-Dick's famous 'from hell's heart I stab at thee'), and a close-up of Melville's face replies, 'What?'
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.