sirens
Original: sirens on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Woman (dark hair, glasses, pink jacket): I don't get why Odysseus was tempted by the sirens. You pass by an island of sexy monster girls, why do you have to be bound to a mast to just say "don't sleep with the sexy monster girls"?
Panel 2:
Man (red hair and beard, suit): That's what everyone thinks happens in that scene. The actual Odyssey doesn't mention them being especially attractive.
Panel 3:
Man: There's also no sex. What they offer Odysseus is to talk to him and tell him every detail about the war a bunch of his friends recently died in, and then to give him the lay of the future.
Panel 4:
Man: That is, you've got island of girls with pretty voices who will tell you the meaning and truth of the most important event of your life and then give you the information you need to live the rest of it well.
Panel 5:
Woman (excited): Where?! Where?! Take me to them!
Panel 6:
Man (reading/quoting, while the woman embraces him): To be clear, "about them is a great heap of bones of mouldering men and round the bones the skin is shriveling."
Woman (embracing him eagerly): I can work with that!
Votey:
Caption (musical notes around it, sung): Your whole life was pointless, loser.
(A mermaid/siren sits on a rock, singing serenely.)
Woman (dark hair, glasses, pink jacket): I don't get why Odysseus was tempted by the sirens. You pass by an island of sexy monster girls, why do you have to be bound to a mast to just say "don't sleep with the sexy monster girls"?
Panel 2:
Man (red hair and beard, suit): That's what everyone thinks happens in that scene. The actual Odyssey doesn't mention them being especially attractive.
Panel 3:
Man: There's also no sex. What they offer Odysseus is to talk to him and tell him every detail about the war a bunch of his friends recently died in, and then to give him the lay of the future.
Panel 4:
Man: That is, you've got island of girls with pretty voices who will tell you the meaning and truth of the most important event of your life and then give you the information you need to live the rest of it well.
Panel 5:
Woman (excited): Where?! Where?! Take me to them!
Panel 6:
Man (reading/quoting, while the woman embraces him): To be clear, "about them is a great heap of bones of mouldering men and round the bones the skin is shriveling."
Woman (embracing him eagerly): I can work with that!
Votey:
Caption (musical notes around it, sung): Your whole life was pointless, loser.
(A mermaid/siren sits on a rock, singing serenely.)
Alt text
A six-panel SMBC comic. A woman with dark hair and glasses talks with a red-bearded man in a suit. She asks why Odysseus was tempted by the sirens enough to be tied to a mast just to avoid sleeping with sexy monster girls. He explains that the actual Odyssey doesn't describe the sirens as especially attractive and offers no sex; instead they offer to tell Odysseus every detail of the war his friends died in and give him knowledge of his future. He sums it up: an island of girls with pretty voices who will tell you the meaning and truth of the most important event of your life and the information to live the rest of it well. The woman becomes ecstatic, shouting "Where?! Where?! Take me to them!" and throws her arms around him. He clarifies, quoting the text, that around the sirens lies "a great heap of bones of mouldering men and round the bones the skin is shriveling." Undeterred, the woman replies, "I can work with that!" In the votey aftercomic, a serene mermaid sits on a rock singing, with musical notes around her; the sung lyric reads: "Your whole life was pointless, loser."
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.