deer

A four-panel SMBC comic. Panel 1: a forest scene, mostly in silhouette, as an off-panel woman exclaims, "Wow, look at that baby deer!" Panel 2: a fawn stands in a sunlit forest clearing while a park ranger says, "The moment it's born, it can run, skip, jump." Panel 3: the ranger and a woman named Sharon stand together; Sharon says, "Isn't it wondrous how, over eons, every time a baby deer was born who couldn't immediately run, it was culled by natural selection?" Panel 4: looking up at a large tree, the ranger says, "Your interest in evolutionary biology is ruining our hikes, Sharon," while Sharon enthusiastically says, "Look at that great old sycamore, blocking light, starving the young saplings below!" The joke is that Sharon reframes every charming nature sight as a brutal evolutionary battle. Votey (aftercomic): a silhouette of a large tree against a bright sky, with the caption "Fuck saplings." — doubling down on the dark, gleefully amoral view of nature.