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evolutionist

Original: evolutionist on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

Transcript

Panel 1:
Child (red-haired, in bed): FATHER! THERE'S AN EVOLUTIONIST UNDER MY BED!

Panel 2:
Child: HE WANTS TO MAKE ME INTO A SENSELESS REPRODUCTION MACHINE!

Panel 3:
(A bearded man crouches under the bed; the father, wearing glasses and a yellow shirt, stands in the doorway.)

Panel 4:
Father: OH, SON. THAT'S JUST A STEREOTYPE. ALL HE WANTS IS TO RANT ABOUT ACADEMIC QUIBBLES SO TRIVIAL YOU WON'T EVEN STAY AWAKE THROUGH A WHOLE SENTENCE.
Bearded man under the bed: ...BUT THEN WHY DO SOME PARASITE SPECIES HAVE A TWO-HOST LIFECYCLE INSTEAD OF A THIRD WHICH MAY OR MAY NOT INCLUDE AN ASEXUAL PHASE, WHEREAS...

Panel 5:
(Close-up of the father in the doorway, listening.)

Panel 6:
(The bearded man under the bed keeps talking.)

Panel 7:
Father: AWWW, OUT LIKE A LIGHT.
(The child is now asleep in bed, snoring "ZZZ.")
Bearded man (still going): ...PERTAINING TO AN INAPPROPRIATE USE OF LOG-NORMAL DISTRIBUTION IN...

Votey:
Bearded man under the bed: SOMEDAY I WON'T BE A GRAD STUDENT AND THEN I CAN LIVE ABOVE THE BED.

Alt text

A seven-panel SMBC comic. A red-haired child sits up in bed and cries to their father, "FATHER! THERE'S AN EVOLUTIONIST UNDER MY BED! HE WANTS TO MAKE ME INTO A SENSELESS REPRODUCTION MACHINE!" A bearded man is crouched under the bed while the father, in glasses and a yellow shirt, stands calmly in the doorway. The father reassures: "OH, SON. THAT'S JUST A STEREOTYPE. ALL HE WANTS IS TO RANT ABOUT ACADEMIC QUIBBLES SO TRIVIAL YOU WON'T EVEN STAY AWAKE THROUGH A WHOLE SENTENCE." Sure enough, the man under the bed launches into dense jargon about parasite life cycles and log-normal distributions, and the child falls fast asleep, snoring, while the father says "AWWW, OUT LIKE A LIGHT." The joke inverts the monster-under-the-bed trope: the scary creature is a boring academic whose tedious rambling is a better sleep aid than a threat. Votey (aftercomic): a close-up of the bearded man peering out from under the bed, sighing, "SOMEDAY I WON'T BE A GRAD STUDENT AND THEN I CAN LIVE ABOVE THE BED."

Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.