neuroses

A nine-panel comic set in a therapist's office. A man lies on a couch while a gray-haired therapist sits in a chair taking notes. The man rambles: "Sometimes, I worry I'm not repressing anything. What if I don't secretly want to kill anything or have sex with anything? What if I'm not an animal with barely-restrained primal passions? What if this relaxed civilized exterior isn't a shell, but THIS all the way down?" The therapist replies, "'To thine own self be true.'" The man exclaims, "EXACTLY! The character who says that gets killed by the famous main character!" He continues, deflated: "I guess that's it. I'm Polonius. I stand around offering advice to people who won't take it, watching the lives of greater people from afar, then one day I will suddenly, pointlessly die." After a silent panel, he asks, "Was THAT your point?" The therapist, deadpan, answers, "I really didn't think you'd catch it" -- revealing she quoted Polonius's line on purpose to lead him to the realization. Votey (bonus panel): a roughly sketched woman says, "That'll be two-hundred bucks, dumbass."