fuel
Original: fuel on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Green alien (the commander): "Why's that bad?"
Another green alien (subordinate): "Bad news, commander. Ever since we discovered bad poetry can be used as fuel, we have expanded around the galaxy."
Panel 2:
Subordinate alien: "We're outstripping production. At this rate of expansion we can't continue to fuel our ships for more than another few months."
Panel 3:
Commander: "I see. What if we took a species of ape, gave it languages, and made it aware of its mortality."
Panel 4:
Other alien: "How is that even remotely ethical?"
Panel 5 (caption bar): SHORTLY...
A human man looking at his phone: "Wow. How can one city have 14 poetry slams in one day?"
Nearby alien (disguised, wearing a cone-shaped paper hat reading "Go Humans"): "Weeiiiiird..."
Votey:
An alien with rolled-up eyes, written text in cursive: "Really makes you wanna write about the anxiety of life in the modern world, right?"
Green alien (the commander): "Why's that bad?"
Another green alien (subordinate): "Bad news, commander. Ever since we discovered bad poetry can be used as fuel, we have expanded around the galaxy."
Panel 2:
Subordinate alien: "We're outstripping production. At this rate of expansion we can't continue to fuel our ships for more than another few months."
Panel 3:
Commander: "I see. What if we took a species of ape, gave it languages, and made it aware of its mortality."
Panel 4:
Other alien: "How is that even remotely ethical?"
Panel 5 (caption bar): SHORTLY...
A human man looking at his phone: "Wow. How can one city have 14 poetry slams in one day?"
Nearby alien (disguised, wearing a cone-shaped paper hat reading "Go Humans"): "Weeiiiiird..."
Votey:
An alien with rolled-up eyes, written text in cursive: "Really makes you wanna write about the anxiety of life in the modern world, right?"
Alt text
A five-panel SMBC comic. In the first panels, two big-eyed green aliens stand on a spaceship. One reports: "Bad news, commander. Ever since we discovered bad poetry can be used as fuel, we have expanded around the galaxy." The commander asks, "Why's that bad?" The subordinate explains they're outstripping production and can only fuel their ships for a few more months. The commander muses: "I see. What if we took a species of ape, gave it languages, and made it aware of its mortality." Another alien protests: "How is that even remotely ethical?" The final panel, captioned "Shortly...," shows a human man staring at his phone saying "Wow. How can one city have 14 poetry slams in one day?" Beside him, an alien poorly disguised in a cone-shaped paper hat that reads "Go Humans" mutters, "Weeiiiiird..." The joke: aliens engineered humanity to be anxious and create bad poetry as a fuel source. Votey: a close-up of an alien with eyes rolled up, thinking in cursive handwriting, "Really makes you wanna write about the anxiety of life in the modern world, right?"
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.