Stop
Original: Stop on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Man with red hair: AND THEN HE SAID "WELL I DON'T LIKE THE WAY YOU—
Woman with glasses (clutching her face, alarmed): STOP!
Panel 2:
Red-haired man: WHAT? WHAT'S THE MATTER?
Woman: WHENEVER PEOPLE START QUOTATIONS I INTERRUPT.
Panel 3:
Red-haired man: WHY?
Woman: IT'S THE ONLY GRAMMATICALLY ACCEPTABLE WAY TO OPEN QUOTATION MARKS WITHOUT CLOSING THEM.
Panel 4:
Red-haired man: YOU SON OF A BITCH!
Woman (eyes wide, pointing up, manic): LOOK AT THEM UP THERE! OPEN BUT NOT CLOSING! HAHAHAHA!
Panel 5:
Woman (face close, intense, gritting teeth): THEY'VE ESCAPED YOU! AND BECAUSE YOU BLOCK INTERRUPT AN OPENING QUOTATION, ALL YOU'VE DONE IS CONTRIBUTE TO AN ETERNAL GRAMMATICAL IMBALANCE IN REALITY!
Panel 6:
Woman: NOW TO OPEN A PARENTHETICAL RIGHT BEFORE YOU FREAK OUT (FREAKING OUT MEANING THAT—
Red-haired man (horrified): NOOOO!
Votey:
No text. A square panel filled entirely with rows of small open-quotation-mark squiggles (open but never closed).
Man with red hair: AND THEN HE SAID "WELL I DON'T LIKE THE WAY YOU—
Woman with glasses (clutching her face, alarmed): STOP!
Panel 2:
Red-haired man: WHAT? WHAT'S THE MATTER?
Woman: WHENEVER PEOPLE START QUOTATIONS I INTERRUPT.
Panel 3:
Red-haired man: WHY?
Woman: IT'S THE ONLY GRAMMATICALLY ACCEPTABLE WAY TO OPEN QUOTATION MARKS WITHOUT CLOSING THEM.
Panel 4:
Red-haired man: YOU SON OF A BITCH!
Woman (eyes wide, pointing up, manic): LOOK AT THEM UP THERE! OPEN BUT NOT CLOSING! HAHAHAHA!
Panel 5:
Woman (face close, intense, gritting teeth): THEY'VE ESCAPED YOU! AND BECAUSE YOU BLOCK INTERRUPT AN OPENING QUOTATION, ALL YOU'VE DONE IS CONTRIBUTE TO AN ETERNAL GRAMMATICAL IMBALANCE IN REALITY!
Panel 6:
Woman: NOW TO OPEN A PARENTHETICAL RIGHT BEFORE YOU FREAK OUT (FREAKING OUT MEANING THAT—
Red-haired man (horrified): NOOOO!
Votey:
No text. A square panel filled entirely with rows of small open-quotation-mark squiggles (open but never closed).
Alt text
A six-panel SMBC comic. A red-haired man is mid-sentence, beginning a quote: "AND THEN HE SAID 'WELL I DON'T LIKE THE WAY YOU—" when a woman with glasses clutches her face and shouts "STOP!" He asks what's wrong; she explains that whenever people start quotations, she interrupts. Why? Because, she says, it's the only grammatically acceptable way to open quotation marks without closing them. He calls her a son of a bitch, and she goes wide-eyed and manic, pointing upward: "LOOK AT THEM UP THERE! OPEN BUT NOT CLOSING! HAHAHAHA!" Leaning in with gritted teeth, she declares that the quotes have escaped him—by block-interrupting an opening quotation, all he's done is contribute to an eternal grammatical imbalance in reality. In the final panel she opens a parenthetical right before he can react: "NOW TO OPEN A PARENTHETICAL RIGHT BEFORE YOU FREAK OUT (FREAKING OUT MEANING THAT—" as the man recoils in horror screaming "NOOOO!" The joke: she weaponizes interrupting people mid-quote, leaving punctuation forever unclosed. The votey (aftercomic) is a wordless square panel packed with rows of tiny open-quotation-mark squiggles—every one opened, none ever closed.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.