anne
Original: anne on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Man with flame-like red hair and beard (to an AI device with a glowing light): "Hey AI, bet you can't tell me why Anne of Green Gables appeals to people so much."
Panel 2:
AI: "Humans desire uncomplex nurturing relationships. The novel in question centers on an orphan with no family attachments and no psychological damage from that loss."
Panel 3:
AI: "She is intelligent, amusing, requires minimal effort, and because the narrator is omniscient you know she is kind and good-intentioned."
Panel 4:
AI: "In the same way movies isolate complex feelings and realistic bodies from the act of sex, this novel isolates complex feelings and realistic minds from the act of child-rearing."
Panel 5:
AI: "Humans being evolved animals with limited comprehension, idealized baby-making and baby-raising stories are compelling to you in the same way a cylinder of syrup compels a hummingbird."
Panel 6:
Man (distressed): "I... I."
Panel 7 (silhouette of the man head in hands; AI light glowing):
Panel 8:
Man (shouting, anguished): "No! It's because she's spunky! She's spunky goddamn you!"
Panel 9:
AI: "Okay, buddy. Sure, buddy."
Votey:
AI (speech bubble): "She will live forever because she is not real. Not meat. Not like you."
(The AI is shown as a tall cylindrical device with a glowing oval light/eye.)
Man with flame-like red hair and beard (to an AI device with a glowing light): "Hey AI, bet you can't tell me why Anne of Green Gables appeals to people so much."
Panel 2:
AI: "Humans desire uncomplex nurturing relationships. The novel in question centers on an orphan with no family attachments and no psychological damage from that loss."
Panel 3:
AI: "She is intelligent, amusing, requires minimal effort, and because the narrator is omniscient you know she is kind and good-intentioned."
Panel 4:
AI: "In the same way movies isolate complex feelings and realistic bodies from the act of sex, this novel isolates complex feelings and realistic minds from the act of child-rearing."
Panel 5:
AI: "Humans being evolved animals with limited comprehension, idealized baby-making and baby-raising stories are compelling to you in the same way a cylinder of syrup compels a hummingbird."
Panel 6:
Man (distressed): "I... I."
Panel 7 (silhouette of the man head in hands; AI light glowing):
Panel 8:
Man (shouting, anguished): "No! It's because she's spunky! She's spunky goddamn you!"
Panel 9:
AI: "Okay, buddy. Sure, buddy."
Votey:
AI (speech bubble): "She will live forever because she is not real. Not meat. Not like you."
(The AI is shown as a tall cylindrical device with a glowing oval light/eye.)
Alt text
A nine-panel SMBC comic. A man with flame-like red hair and beard challenges an AI (a small device with a glowing light) to explain why the novel Anne of Green Gables appeals to people. The AI delivers a clinical analysis: humans want uncomplex nurturing relationships, and the book offers an orphan with no family attachments and no psychological damage, an intelligent, amusing character requiring minimal effort, whose goodness is guaranteed by an omniscient narrator. It compares this to how movies isolate complex feelings from sex, saying the novel isolates complex feelings and realistic minds from child-rearing, and concludes that idealized baby-raising stories compel humans like a cylinder of syrup compels a hummingbird. The man, visibly distressed and then shown as a silhouette with his head in his hands, finally shouts in anguish, 'No! It's because she's spunky! She's spunky goddamn you!' The AI replies flatly, 'Okay, buddy. Sure, buddy.' Votey (aftercomic): the AI device, with its glowing oval eye, adds, 'She will live forever because she is not real. Not meat. Not like you.'
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.