Canon

A six-panel SMBC comic satirizing debates over the literary canon by reframing each position as being about which books to IGNORE rather than read. The top four panels each show a single figure under a colored header. Panel 1, 'GREAT BOOK TRADITIONALISTS,' a man with raised hands: 'The books that mankind should be ignoring are those great masterpieces that express a UNIVERSAL aesthetic!' Panel 2, 'MULTICULTURAL REFORMISTS,' a man pointing up: 'Inclusion means ignoring EVERYONE! Women, minorities, and other marginalized communities MUST have their voices unheard!' Panel 3, 'DECOLONIALISTS,' a man with arms spread: 'CHOOSING what books to ignore only REINFORCES existing logics of POWER! Communities should cultivate their own LOCAL unread texts!' Panel 4, 'PLURALISTS,' a smiling man: 'There is no Western or Eastern or Northern or Southern canon! Let us neglect ALL literature!' The bottom two panels deliver the punchline with a different art style. Panel 5: a bespectacled person reads at a desk before bookshelves, narration: 'All those fights over the Western canon seem pretty stupid as ever fewer people read any books at all.' Panel 6: a gray-haired person relaxes in a chair, narration: 'But it's MUCH funnier now.' Votey (aftercomic): handwritten text in a hand-drawn box reads, 'PROPOSAL: In a few years, when only one person remains who reads books, we let them decide what's canonical.'