ichnospecies
Original: ichnospecies on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Two robotic explorers examine the surface of an old, abandoned planet (implied to be a long-deserted Earth). They walk and talk across a series of panels set against a dark, reddish landscape.
Panel 1
First robot: "Ah. What left these footprints?"
Second robot: "A human. They are an overspecies."
Panel 2
First robot: "What's that?"
Panel 3
Second robot: "Fossils for which we have no fossils, but which we know existed due to evidence of their work."
Panel 4
Second robot: "Humans created people-attacking machines that continued until there was no more work to do. Now they hover around old human habitat."
Panel 5
Second robot: "Yet but humans made it a value and left other things behind. Note: these footprints lead to a primitive shelter on which are drawn pictures of the beloved dead of local animals and pens after pens after pens."
Panel 6
First robot: "Fascinating."
Panel 7
Second robot: "Also, plastic microbeads appear to be unique to this planet and an empty outpost on Mars."
Panel 8
First robot: "Oh, come on. That's gotta be a coincidence."
(Note: portions of the lettering are rendered at low resolution and have been transcribed as accurately as the image allows; some words are approximate.)
Votey:
A single hand-lettered caption in a panel:
"(If everyone on Earth simultaneously synchronized names, nobody could be blamed for anything.)"
Panel 1
First robot: "Ah. What left these footprints?"
Second robot: "A human. They are an overspecies."
Panel 2
First robot: "What's that?"
Panel 3
Second robot: "Fossils for which we have no fossils, but which we know existed due to evidence of their work."
Panel 4
Second robot: "Humans created people-attacking machines that continued until there was no more work to do. Now they hover around old human habitat."
Panel 5
Second robot: "Yet but humans made it a value and left other things behind. Note: these footprints lead to a primitive shelter on which are drawn pictures of the beloved dead of local animals and pens after pens after pens."
Panel 6
First robot: "Fascinating."
Panel 7
Second robot: "Also, plastic microbeads appear to be unique to this planet and an empty outpost on Mars."
Panel 8
First robot: "Oh, come on. That's gotta be a coincidence."
(Note: portions of the lettering are rendered at low resolution and have been transcribed as accurately as the image allows; some words are approximate.)
Votey:
A single hand-lettered caption in a panel:
"(If everyone on Earth simultaneously synchronized names, nobody could be blamed for anything.)"
Alt text
An eight-panel SMBC comic. Two small robot explorers stand on the dark reddish surface of a long-abandoned planet, examining footprints and the evidence humans left behind. The first robot asks what left the footprints; the second explains they were made by humans, an extinct "overspecies" known only through the evidence of their work, not from fossils. The second robot recounts that humans built machines that kept working until there was nothing left to do, that they left behind a primitive shelter covered in drawings of their beloved dead and endless pens, and that plastic microbeads seem unique to this planet plus an empty outpost on Mars. The first robot calls it fascinating, then dismisses the Mars-microbead link as "gotta be a coincidence." Votey: a single panel with the hand-lettered caption, "(If everyone on Earth simultaneously synchronized names, nobody could be blamed for anything.)"
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.