mars-2
Original: mars-2 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1 (single panel):
Setting: Two astronauts in spacesuits stand on the reddish surface of Mars, with a rocket/lander in the background. One astronaut holds a red object (a clay tablet).
Astronaut on the left: "MY GOD. IS THAT... LANGUAGE?"
Astronaut on the right (holding the red tablet): "IT APPEARS TO BE A BUDGET ALLOCATION SAYING THE SPACE PROGRAM IS TOO EXPENSIVE."
Caption below panel: The first sign of life on Mars.
Votey:
Label at top: "me, after drawing this..."
A person rests their chin on their hand, thinking, with a worried/puzzled expression. Thought bubble: "But why is it on a clay tablet?"
Setting: Two astronauts in spacesuits stand on the reddish surface of Mars, with a rocket/lander in the background. One astronaut holds a red object (a clay tablet).
Astronaut on the left: "MY GOD. IS THAT... LANGUAGE?"
Astronaut on the right (holding the red tablet): "IT APPEARS TO BE A BUDGET ALLOCATION SAYING THE SPACE PROGRAM IS TOO EXPENSIVE."
Caption below panel: The first sign of life on Mars.
Votey:
Label at top: "me, after drawing this..."
A person rests their chin on their hand, thinking, with a worried/puzzled expression. Thought bubble: "But why is it on a clay tablet?"
Alt text
Single-panel comic. Two astronauts in spacesuits stand on the rusty red surface of Mars, a small rocket lander visible in the distance behind them. The astronaut on the right holds up a flat red object resembling a clay tablet. The left astronaut exclaims, "MY GOD. IS THAT... LANGUAGE?" The right astronaut replies, "IT APPEARS TO BE A BUDGET ALLOCATION SAYING THE SPACE PROGRAM IS TOO EXPENSIVE." A caption beneath reads: "The first sign of life on Mars." The joke: the first alien artifact found on Mars is bureaucratic budget paperwork declaring the space program too costly. Votey (aftercomic): a rough hand-drawn sketch labeled "me, after drawing this..." shows a person resting their chin on their hand with a puzzled expression and a thought bubble reading, "But why is it on a clay tablet?" — the cartoonist second-guessing why budget paperwork would be on an ancient clay tablet.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.