wit
Original: wit on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Caption: RECENTLY...
Panel 1: A man in a dark suit stands enthusiastically beside a woman with gray hair in a red blazer who sits at a laptop.
Man: "GREAT NEWS! I'VE CREATED SCREENPLAY-WRITING SOFTWARE THAT TELLS YOU HOW TO WRITE DIALOG."
Panel 2:
Man: "HERE. YOU JUST INPUT THE TYPE OF SCENE, AND IT OUTPUTS THE WAY THE CHARACTERS SHOULD SPEAK."
Panel 3: The woman types at her laptop. A screen prompt reads: "ESCAPE FROM BURNING BUILDING"
Laptop output: WITTY BANTER.
Panel 4: Another prompt: "ROMANTIC SEASIDE WALK"
Laptop output: WITTY BANTER.
Panel 5: Another prompt: "DANGEROUS CHILDBIRTH GONE AWRY."
Laptop output: WITTY BANTER.
Panel 6: Another prompt: "POLITICAL PRISONERS BEING DEVOURED BY WILD DOGS"
Laptop output: WITTY BANTER.
Panel 7: The woman looks up skeptically at the man.
Woman: "HOW ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO HAVE CHARACTERS DEVELOP IF ALL OF THEM CONSTANTLY TALK IN THE SAME SHALLOW WAY.?"
Man: "I THINK WE CAN REPLACE THAT SORT OF THING WITH SEXY PEOPLE IN CAPES."
Votey:
A loosely sketched woman speaks to another woman who leans on something at right; a small child stands at lower left.
Woman: "That is breathtakingly curmudgeonly"
Panel 1: A man in a dark suit stands enthusiastically beside a woman with gray hair in a red blazer who sits at a laptop.
Man: "GREAT NEWS! I'VE CREATED SCREENPLAY-WRITING SOFTWARE THAT TELLS YOU HOW TO WRITE DIALOG."
Panel 2:
Man: "HERE. YOU JUST INPUT THE TYPE OF SCENE, AND IT OUTPUTS THE WAY THE CHARACTERS SHOULD SPEAK."
Panel 3: The woman types at her laptop. A screen prompt reads: "ESCAPE FROM BURNING BUILDING"
Laptop output: WITTY BANTER.
Panel 4: Another prompt: "ROMANTIC SEASIDE WALK"
Laptop output: WITTY BANTER.
Panel 5: Another prompt: "DANGEROUS CHILDBIRTH GONE AWRY."
Laptop output: WITTY BANTER.
Panel 6: Another prompt: "POLITICAL PRISONERS BEING DEVOURED BY WILD DOGS"
Laptop output: WITTY BANTER.
Panel 7: The woman looks up skeptically at the man.
Woman: "HOW ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO HAVE CHARACTERS DEVELOP IF ALL OF THEM CONSTANTLY TALK IN THE SAME SHALLOW WAY.?"
Man: "I THINK WE CAN REPLACE THAT SORT OF THING WITH SEXY PEOPLE IN CAPES."
Votey:
A loosely sketched woman speaks to another woman who leans on something at right; a small child stands at lower left.
Woman: "That is breathtakingly curmudgeonly"
Alt text
An eight-panel SMBC comic titled 'RECENTLY...' A man in a dark suit proudly tells a gray-haired woman in a red blazer seated at a laptop that he has created screenplay-writing software that tells you how to write dialog: you input the type of scene and it outputs how the characters should speak. The woman types a series of wildly different scene prompts into the laptop, and every single one returns the same output. 'ESCAPE FROM BURNING BUILDING' returns 'WITTY BANTER.' 'ROMANTIC SEASIDE WALK' returns 'WITTY BANTER.' 'DANGEROUS CHILDBIRTH GONE AWRY' returns 'WITTY BANTER.' 'POLITICAL PRISONERS BEING DEVOURED BY WILD DOGS' returns 'WITTY BANTER.' The woman looks up skeptically and asks how characters are supposed to develop if they all constantly talk in the same shallow way. The man cheerfully replies that they can probably replace that sort of thing with sexy people in capes. The joke mocks formulaic, sameness-everywhere screenwriting and the superhero-blockbuster solution to bland dialogue. Votey: a roughly sketched panel of a woman saying to another woman, with a small child nearby, 'That is breathtakingly curmudgeonly.'
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.