history
Original: history on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Dark-haired woman: People are so agitated today. I wonder if they would relax if they read more history.
Panel 2:
Dark-haired woman: When you know enough history, you stop seeing yourself as an endpoint and more of a midpoint, you know? Tossed to where you are by the past, casting your own waves out at future generations. Don't you think?
Blonde woman: Nah.
Panel 3:
Dark-haired woman: If people read more history, they'd be far more relaxed about the short term and far more terrified of the long term.
Panel 4:
Dark-haired woman: The long term will not only kill them, it will make their social views quaint, their greatest concerns trivial, and their scope of reality into an anthill built in a heap of dung.
Panel 5 (wordless): A small figure stands looking at the silhouette of another figure.
Panel 6 (wordless): A skeletal/decayed face emerges from a snowy or ash-covered mound.
Panel 7:
Dark-haired woman: Tomorrow's news will be the same as today's, but history will one day shame them, mock them, and finally, like a clipped toenail, cast them aside.
Panel 8:
Blonde woman: Well, what should we read if we want to be happy?
Dark-haired woman: I stick to comics, personally.
Votey:
A close-up of a person's face (the blonde woman) looking down, annoyed, with a speech bubble above reading: Grow up.
Dark-haired woman: People are so agitated today. I wonder if they would relax if they read more history.
Panel 2:
Dark-haired woman: When you know enough history, you stop seeing yourself as an endpoint and more of a midpoint, you know? Tossed to where you are by the past, casting your own waves out at future generations. Don't you think?
Blonde woman: Nah.
Panel 3:
Dark-haired woman: If people read more history, they'd be far more relaxed about the short term and far more terrified of the long term.
Panel 4:
Dark-haired woman: The long term will not only kill them, it will make their social views quaint, their greatest concerns trivial, and their scope of reality into an anthill built in a heap of dung.
Panel 5 (wordless): A small figure stands looking at the silhouette of another figure.
Panel 6 (wordless): A skeletal/decayed face emerges from a snowy or ash-covered mound.
Panel 7:
Dark-haired woman: Tomorrow's news will be the same as today's, but history will one day shame them, mock them, and finally, like a clipped toenail, cast them aside.
Panel 8:
Blonde woman: Well, what should we read if we want to be happy?
Dark-haired woman: I stick to comics, personally.
Votey:
A close-up of a person's face (the blonde woman) looking down, annoyed, with a speech bubble above reading: Grow up.
Alt text
An eight-panel SMBC comic. A blonde woman and a dark-haired woman talk. The dark-haired woman muses that people are so agitated today and wonders if reading more history would relax them — because once you know enough history you see yourself as a midpoint rather than an endpoint, tossed forward by the past and casting waves toward future generations. The blonde woman flatly replies, 'Nah.' Undeterred, the dark-haired woman elaborates: reading history would make people far more relaxed about the short term but far more terrified of the long term, which will not only kill them but render their views quaint, their concerns trivial, and their whole reality 'an anthill built in a heap of dung.' Two wordless panels show tiny silhouetted figures and a decayed face emerging from a snowy mound, illustrating the bleak long view. She concludes that history will one day shame and mock them, then discard them 'like a clipped toenail.' The blonde woman asks, 'Well, what should we read if we want to be happy?' The dark-haired woman answers, 'I stick to comics, personally.' Votey: a close-up of the blonde woman's annoyed face with a speech bubble reading 'Grow up.'
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.