booked

An eight-panel SMBC comic laid out in two columns. A small child on a playground swing set asks their mother, "Mom... adults are in charge of the world, right?" The mom says "Yes." Over the next panels the mom reasons aloud: suppose the average world leader is 50 years old; if they read 100 books a year for 32 years, that's... and they don't even read that ("They do not," agrees the child). She continues that leaders ought to understand the world -- law, economics, history, science -- yet started reading adult books at 18, amounting to roughly a quarter of a smalltown public library's worth of reading. The child, dawning with dread, stammers "Then how... but how..." In the final panel the mom, unfazed, replies, "Would you like to see Mommy's basement collection of dry rations and petroleum?" while a swing set silhouette sits beside them. Votey (aftercomic): a close-up of the mom's face dissolving into a melted, hollow-eyed, horrified expression as her speech bubble reads, "The whole system. All of it: talking apes. Talking apes wearing pants."