datum
Original: datum on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Title: HOW TO SPOT A SCIENTIST
Panel 1 (labeled "NON-SCIENTIST"):
A man with dark hair (back to us) speaking to a man with flame-like red hair.
Dark-haired man: "The data is in and it looks like there were no survivors, not even your family."
Red-haired man (distraught, arms raised): "NOOOO!"
Panel 2 (labeled "SCIENTIST"):
The same dark-haired man (back to us) speaking to a woman with glasses and brown hair.
Dark-haired man: "The data is in and it looks like there were no survivors, not even your fami—" (cut off)
Woman: "The data ARE in."
Votey:
Handwritten text inside a hand-drawn frame: "This comic directed specifically at my descriptivist wife."
Panel 1 (labeled "NON-SCIENTIST"):
A man with dark hair (back to us) speaking to a man with flame-like red hair.
Dark-haired man: "The data is in and it looks like there were no survivors, not even your family."
Red-haired man (distraught, arms raised): "NOOOO!"
Panel 2 (labeled "SCIENTIST"):
The same dark-haired man (back to us) speaking to a woman with glasses and brown hair.
Dark-haired man: "The data is in and it looks like there were no survivors, not even your fami—" (cut off)
Woman: "The data ARE in."
Votey:
Handwritten text inside a hand-drawn frame: "This comic directed specifically at my descriptivist wife."
Alt text
Title: "How to spot a scientist." Two stacked panels each show a dark-haired man, seen from behind, delivering grim news. Top panel, labeled "NON-SCIENTIST": he tells a red-haired man, "The data is in and it looks like there were no survivors, not even your family," and the red-haired man screams "NOOOO!" in anguish. Bottom panel, labeled "SCIENTIST": he begins the identical line to a calm brown-haired woman in glasses, "The data is in and it looks like there were no survivors, not even your fami—," but she interrupts to correct his grammar: "The data ARE in." The joke is that a scientist's reflex to pluralize "data" overrides any emotional reaction to catastrophic news. Votey aftercomic: handwritten text in a hand-drawn frame reads, "This comic directed specifically at my descriptivist wife."
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.