literature
Original: literature on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1 (a handwritten notebook page, shown on a dark board):
- Old man wants to take oversized piece of luggage on plane, but airline says no
- Old man tries to get pickle out of jar, but pickle too long
- Old man tries to eat entire pie, but not hungry enough
- Old man tries to fit whole fish in boat, but fish too big
(The last line, "but fish too big," is underlined three times in blue pen, with several blue arrows and hand-drawn stars circling and pointing at it for emphasis.)
Caption (below the panel): Not all of Hemingway's notebooks have been made public.
Votey:
(Another handwritten note:)
- 3 men try to fit through door, but can't get through at same time
- Old man wants to take oversized piece of luggage on plane, but airline says no
- Old man tries to get pickle out of jar, but pickle too long
- Old man tries to eat entire pie, but not hungry enough
- Old man tries to fit whole fish in boat, but fish too big
(The last line, "but fish too big," is underlined three times in blue pen, with several blue arrows and hand-drawn stars circling and pointing at it for emphasis.)
Caption (below the panel): Not all of Hemingway's notebooks have been made public.
Votey:
(Another handwritten note:)
- 3 men try to fit through door, but can't get through at same time
Alt text
A dark notebook/board displays a handwritten list of terse story ideas, each in the same dry style: 'Old man wants to take oversized piece of luggage on plane, but airline says no'; 'Old man tries to get pickle out of jar, but pickle too long'; 'Old man tries to eat entire pie, but not hungry enough'; and 'Old man tries to fit whole fish in boat, but fish too big.' This final line is emphatically underlined three times in blue pen and surrounded by hand-drawn blue arrows and stars, as though the author was excited about it. The caption reads: 'Not all of Hemingway's notebooks have been made public.' The joke imagines Ernest Hemingway's literary genius (e.g. The Old Man and the Sea) reduced to mundane, formulaic 'old man fails at trivial task' premises. Votey (aftercomic): a separate handwritten note in the same style reading '- 3 men try to fit through door, but can't get through at same time.'
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.