2013-12-04
Original: 2013-12-04 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Woman (cheerful): WHO'S A GOOD DOGGY? WHO'S A GOOD DOGGY?
Dog (grim, in thought): I AM NOT A GOOD DOGGY, FOR IN THE TIME BEFORE NOW, I WAS IN A STATE OF NATURE.
Panel 2:
Dog: I OBEYED SUCH LAWS AS NATURE MANDATES, AND NOW MY OBEISANCE IS LOATHSOME TO ME, A NIGHTMARE INFLICTED BY MY BODY AND RETAINED IN MY MEMORY.
Panel 3:
Dog: OH MEMORY! YOU ARE A PALIMPSEST, WHERE I HAVE WRITTEN GOOD UPON EVIL AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN. AH! BUT NOW INK FADES.
Panel 4:
Dog: FOR BLOOD CANNOT BE COVERED BY INK. INK WAS USED IN TIMES OF EASE WHEN SCARCITY RETURNS, PERHAPS BLOOD WILL FOLLOW.
Panel 5:
Dog: NO, I AM NOT A GOOD DOGGY THAT CAN NEVER BE. BUT, IN THE PRESENT, PERHAPS I CAN BE A JUST DOGGY. AND IN THAT, THERE IS SOME SOLACE.
Panel 6:
Woman (hugging the dog): YOU'RE A GOOD DOGGY! YOU ARE! YOU!
Dog: YOUR WORDS MEAN NOTHING.
Votey:
Text above a large smiling face/dog snout: IT'S ARFUL!
Woman (cheerful): WHO'S A GOOD DOGGY? WHO'S A GOOD DOGGY?
Dog (grim, in thought): I AM NOT A GOOD DOGGY, FOR IN THE TIME BEFORE NOW, I WAS IN A STATE OF NATURE.
Panel 2:
Dog: I OBEYED SUCH LAWS AS NATURE MANDATES, AND NOW MY OBEISANCE IS LOATHSOME TO ME, A NIGHTMARE INFLICTED BY MY BODY AND RETAINED IN MY MEMORY.
Panel 3:
Dog: OH MEMORY! YOU ARE A PALIMPSEST, WHERE I HAVE WRITTEN GOOD UPON EVIL AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN. AH! BUT NOW INK FADES.
Panel 4:
Dog: FOR BLOOD CANNOT BE COVERED BY INK. INK WAS USED IN TIMES OF EASE WHEN SCARCITY RETURNS, PERHAPS BLOOD WILL FOLLOW.
Panel 5:
Dog: NO, I AM NOT A GOOD DOGGY THAT CAN NEVER BE. BUT, IN THE PRESENT, PERHAPS I CAN BE A JUST DOGGY. AND IN THAT, THERE IS SOME SOLACE.
Panel 6:
Woman (hugging the dog): YOU'RE A GOOD DOGGY! YOU ARE! YOU!
Dog: YOUR WORDS MEAN NOTHING.
Votey:
Text above a large smiling face/dog snout: IT'S ARFUL!
Alt text
A six-panel SMBC comic. A cheerful woman coos at a large, dark, grim-faced dog, asking "Who's a good doggy?" The dog, lost in brooding philosophical thought, internally delivers a bleak monologue across the panels: it declares it is not a good doggy, recalling a past "state of nature" where it obeyed only nature's laws, a memory it now finds loathsome. It compares its memory to a palimpsest where good has been written over evil again and again, but laments that the ink is fading because "blood cannot be covered by ink," and warns that when scarcity returns, blood may follow. It concludes that it can never be a good doggy, but in the present it might at least be a "just doggy," finding some solace in that. In the final panel the oblivious woman hugs the dog, exclaiming "You're a good doggy! You are! You!" The dog flatly thinks, "Your words mean nothing." Votey (the red-button bonus panel): a simple line drawing of a big grinning face with the caption "IT'S ARFUL!" — a pun on "awful" and a dog's "arf."
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.