ea

A three-panel SMBC comic comparing how a casual greeting changes over time. Panel 1, labeled "IN THE PAST," shows a man in a yellow shirt asking another man in a blue shirt, "How's it going?" The blue-shirted man smiles and answers, "Going okay!" Panel 2, labeled "CURRENTLY," repeats the same question, but now the blue-shirted man shrugs unhappily and says, "Going okay other than the perpetual cataclysms!" Panel 3, labeled "A PROPOSAL FOR THE FUTURE," has the yellow-shirted man explain, "From now on I'm appending 'ea' to questions, as an acronym for 'excluding apocalypses.'" He then asks, "How's it goingea?" and the blue-shirted man, now smiling again, replies, "Okay. Going okay!" The joke is that adding an acronym to exclude ongoing disasters lets people return to cheerful small talk. Votey (bonus panel): the smiling blue-shirted man, now relieved, admits in a large speech bubble, "However I have nothing to talk about."