news
Original: news on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Man (seated, lighter shirt): Every day, I watch the news. Every day: murder, war, famine.
Panel 2:
Man (lighter shirt): It's horrible! I don't know how I can be so happy.
Other man (darker shirt): Uh... you can't be so happy?
Panel 3:
Man (lighter shirt): All I do is find out over and over and over again how great my life is.
Panel 4:
Man (lighter shirt): I'm gonna start watching more of these shows about poor people buying gigantic houses.
Panel 5:
Man (lighter shirt): I think the JFK doc says it. We won't have it because it doesn't want pause detente.
Panel 6:
Other man (darker shirt): Why does the world have to be this way?
Votey:
A man's head in close-up, with a speech bubble.
Man: I need some uplifting cable news.
Man (seated, lighter shirt): Every day, I watch the news. Every day: murder, war, famine.
Panel 2:
Man (lighter shirt): It's horrible! I don't know how I can be so happy.
Other man (darker shirt): Uh... you can't be so happy?
Panel 3:
Man (lighter shirt): All I do is find out over and over and over again how great my life is.
Panel 4:
Man (lighter shirt): I'm gonna start watching more of these shows about poor people buying gigantic houses.
Panel 5:
Man (lighter shirt): I think the JFK doc says it. We won't have it because it doesn't want pause detente.
Panel 6:
Other man (darker shirt): Why does the world have to be this way?
Votey:
A man's head in close-up, with a speech bubble.
Man: I need some uplifting cable news.
Alt text
A six-panel comic showing a conversation between two men, one in a lighter shirt and one in a darker shirt. In the first panels, the man in the lighter shirt says he watches the news every day and sees only murder, war, and famine, calling it horrible and wondering how he can be so happy. He explains that consuming all this misery just reminds him over and over how great his own life is, and says he is going to start watching more shows about poor people buying gigantic houses. He muses smugly about world affairs while the other man, looking troubled, asks, "Why does the world have to be this way?" The joke is that the first man uses other people's suffering, packaged as news and reality TV, as a feel-good comparison that makes him happy rather than concerned. In the votey (aftercomic), a close-up of a man's head with a speech bubble reads, "I need some uplifting cable news," underscoring that he seeks out bad news specifically to feel uplifted by contrast.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.