Sacrifice
Original: Sacrifice on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
God (yellow speech bubble emanating from the sky): "Israelites! You must destroy the Canaanites, who are offering their children by fire to the false god Moloch!"
A bearded man: "Didn't Abraham agree to sacrifice Isaac?"
Panel 2:
God (yellow bubble): "Sacrifice him to ME. The REAL god."
God (yellow bubble): "Plus, I told him not to. It's the difference between stabbing some guy's kid, and merely pointing a gun at him and TELLING him to stab his kid."
Panel 3:
A bearded man: "For three days."
God (yellow bubble): "Three days, man."
Panel 4:
God (yellow bubble): "Is EVERYTHING trauma with you guys?"
Votey:
God (speech from off-panel, top of frame): "You know what? Go build an ark. Go build a freakin' ark."
(A small simple sketched face sits at the bottom of an otherwise empty panel.)
God (yellow speech bubble emanating from the sky): "Israelites! You must destroy the Canaanites, who are offering their children by fire to the false god Moloch!"
A bearded man: "Didn't Abraham agree to sacrifice Isaac?"
Panel 2:
God (yellow bubble): "Sacrifice him to ME. The REAL god."
God (yellow bubble): "Plus, I told him not to. It's the difference between stabbing some guy's kid, and merely pointing a gun at him and TELLING him to stab his kid."
Panel 3:
A bearded man: "For three days."
God (yellow bubble): "Three days, man."
Panel 4:
God (yellow bubble): "Is EVERYTHING trauma with you guys?"
Votey:
God (speech from off-panel, top of frame): "You know what? Go build an ark. Go build a freakin' ark."
(A small simple sketched face sits at the bottom of an otherwise empty panel.)
Alt text
A four-panel SMBC comic. A row of small silhouetted bearded men (the Israelites / biblical patriarchs) stand on a green hillside, addressed by God, whose voice comes from a glowing yellow sun-like orb in the sky via yellow speech bubbles. Panel 1: God commands, "Israelites! You must destroy the Canaanites, who are offering their children by fire to the false god Moloch!" A bearded man replies, "Didn't Abraham agree to sacrifice Isaac?" Panel 2: Close-up of the bearded men; God answers, "Sacrifice him to ME. The REAL god. Plus, I told him not to. It's the difference between stabbing some guy's kid, and merely pointing a gun at him and TELLING him to stab his kid." Panel 3: A man mutters, "For three days." God repeats sarcastically, "Three days, man." Panel 4: A single man stands in profile as God asks exasperatedly, "Is EVERYTHING trauma with you guys?" The joke: God dismisses the patriarchs' objections to divinely-ordered child sacrifice and near-sacrifice, treating their lingering distress as them being oversensitive. Votey (bonus panel): a mostly empty bordered frame with a tiny crudely-drawn face at the bottom; an off-panel voice (God) snaps, "You know what? Go build an ark. Go build a freakin' ark."
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.