transparent

A five-panel comic. Panel 1: a bald scientist in dark sunglasses laughs and gestures at a red, skull-marked glob on the ground, declaring he's created a substance hard as steel that blocks all sound but is completely transparent to light. Panel 2: his large bald henchman, whose shirt reads HENCHMAN, asks why. Panel 3: the scientist says that forty years ago, mimes killed his mother and father. Panel 4: in the lab, the scientist tells the henchman that now the mimes will cry out for food, water, and air. Panel 5: outdoors, a mime is trapped pressing against an invisible wall of the substance while two people calmly photograph him with their phones; narration reads 'And no one will believe them.' The joke: the scientist's revenge traps mimes in an invisible soundproof prison so that their genuine cries for help look exactly like a mime act and go unbelieved. Votey aftercomic: a person peers at the trapped, gaunt mime through the invisible material and remarks, 'Wow he really looks like a rotting corpse. What's the trick?!' — the mime is actually dying but onlookers assume it's part of the performance.