misquotation
Original: misquotation on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1: A man with dark hair and a woman with red hair stand close together. A speech bubble (from off-panel/the man) reads: "...It's like Dostoyevsky said, 'If God is dead, then everything is permitted.'"
The red-haired woman: "He didn't say that!"
Panel 2: The red-haired woman, now talking animatedly: "Sartre, who wrote $3 incomprehensible essays per hour, CLAIMED Dostoyevsky said it, and then everyone kept repeating it, but it is nowhere in Dostoyevsky!"
Panel 3: The man and woman stand together, silent, the man looking thoughtful.
Panel 4: The red-haired woman: "Don't do it—"
The man: "If God is dead, misquoting Dostoyevsky is permitted!"
Panel 5: Close-up of the man's face, looking smug and defiant.
Panel 6: The red-haired woman gasps in horror with her hands raised; the man flails/recoils as if struck, with a large "!" in a speech bubble above him.
Votey:
Text written inside a box: "—Albert Einstein"
The red-haired woman: "He didn't say that!"
Panel 2: The red-haired woman, now talking animatedly: "Sartre, who wrote $3 incomprehensible essays per hour, CLAIMED Dostoyevsky said it, and then everyone kept repeating it, but it is nowhere in Dostoyevsky!"
Panel 3: The man and woman stand together, silent, the man looking thoughtful.
Panel 4: The red-haired woman: "Don't do it—"
The man: "If God is dead, misquoting Dostoyevsky is permitted!"
Panel 5: Close-up of the man's face, looking smug and defiant.
Panel 6: The red-haired woman gasps in horror with her hands raised; the man flails/recoils as if struck, with a large "!" in a speech bubble above him.
Votey:
Text written inside a box: "—Albert Einstein"
Alt text
A six-panel SMBC comic. Panel 1: a dark-haired man and a red-haired woman stand together; a speech bubble says "...It's like Dostoyevsky said, 'If God is dead, then everything is permitted.'" The woman snaps, "He didn't say that!" Panel 2: she explains, "Sartre, who wrote $3 incomprehensible essays per hour, CLAIMED Dostoyevsky said it, and then everyone kept repeating it, but it is nowhere in Dostoyevsky!" Panel 3: the two stand silently, the man looking thoughtful. Panel 4: the woman warns "Don't do it—" and the man declares, "If God is dead, misquoting Dostoyevsky is permitted!" Panel 5: a smug close-up of the man's face. Panel 6: the woman gasps in horror with hands raised while the man flails, a large exclamation mark over his head—implying she has hit or shoved him for the bad pun. The joke: he uses the (itself misattributed) Dostoyevsky line to justify misquoting Dostoyevsky. Votey (aftercomic): a simple framed box containing only the attribution "—Albert Einstein," mocking the way quotes get falsely credited.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.