the-troll-toll
Original: the-troll-toll on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Troll: Before you cross the bridge, you must pay the toll!
Panel 2:
Traveler: Never!
Panel 3:
Traveler: Look, you think bridge maintenance is free?
Panel 4:
Troll: ...I don't.
Panel 5:
Troll: This country has been putting less money into infrastructure every year since I was born! We're living off of the investments of our grandparents and the inheritance of our kids!
Panel 6:
Troll: Then YOU come along to cross the bridge, and I suggest a SMALL fee you should pay for maintaining a resource you are currently using, and you act like I ate your mother!
Panel 7:
Traveler: It's people like you who keep ruining this country!
Panel 8:
Troll: I don't forget it. The sun is rising. I'm gonna turn myself to stone.
Final wide panel (no dialogue): The troll stands at the left end of a stone arch bridge, partially turned to grey stone as the sun rises. A traveler in a purple robe stands on the bridge. Two other travelers watch from the foreground.
Votey:
A close-up of the troll's face, now stone-grey, saying: Think of the savings!
Troll: Before you cross the bridge, you must pay the toll!
Panel 2:
Traveler: Never!
Panel 3:
Traveler: Look, you think bridge maintenance is free?
Panel 4:
Troll: ...I don't.
Panel 5:
Troll: This country has been putting less money into infrastructure every year since I was born! We're living off of the investments of our grandparents and the inheritance of our kids!
Panel 6:
Troll: Then YOU come along to cross the bridge, and I suggest a SMALL fee you should pay for maintaining a resource you are currently using, and you act like I ate your mother!
Panel 7:
Traveler: It's people like you who keep ruining this country!
Panel 8:
Troll: I don't forget it. The sun is rising. I'm gonna turn myself to stone.
Final wide panel (no dialogue): The troll stands at the left end of a stone arch bridge, partially turned to grey stone as the sun rises. A traveler in a purple robe stands on the bridge. Two other travelers watch from the foreground.
Votey:
A close-up of the troll's face, now stone-grey, saying: Think of the savings!
Alt text
An eight-panel SMBC comic. A green troll guards a stone bridge and demands a toll from a robed traveler, who refuses ("Never!"). The troll asks if the traveler thinks bridge maintenance is free; the traveler admits it isn't. The troll launches into a frustrated economic rant: the country has spent less on infrastructure every year, living off grandparents' investments and the kids' inheritance, and when he suggests a small fee for a resource the traveler is actively using, the traveler reacts as if he 'ate your mother.' The traveler retorts that people like the troll ruin the country. The troll, seeing the sun rise, says he's about to turn to stone. In the final wide panel the troll stands at the end of an arched stone bridge, his body turning grey in the dawn light, while travelers look on. Votey: a close-up of the now-stone troll's face declaring, 'Think of the savings!' — the joke being his petrification spares the very maintenance cost he was arguing about.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.