Waste
Original: Waste on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1 (caption over a snowy scene with a crashed/dark vehicle): Another one.
Narrator: All N. Lanudians are they're refugees, runaways. They're trying to escape from something.
Narrator: Must've hit ground just hours ago, sir.
Parka-hooded figure: Try to make contact.
Narrator: So they created a wormhole from some dying reach of the cosmos, trying to get here.
Speech bubble (small): But we weren't exactly survivin'...
Speech bubble: We've got to try!
Speech bubble: Yes sir.
Narrator: But they miscalculated, put their portal too close to the surface.
Narrator: Every few years another ship full of living beings crashes in this desolate strip of the Arctic.
Narrator: It happens so fast each time, they can neither save themselves nor signal home.
Speech bubble: Nothing, sir.
Speech bubble: No survivors.
Narrator: And so all we find is their strewn carcasses, flash-frozen on the endless permafrost.
Speech bubble: Hello?
Speech bubble: Gak!
Speech bubble: Notify headquarters. Prepare the thawer ships for loading.
Final panel (an exterior shot of a rib-shack restaurant building with a sign): M. RIB is BACK
Votey: (none)
Narrator: All N. Lanudians are they're refugees, runaways. They're trying to escape from something.
Narrator: Must've hit ground just hours ago, sir.
Parka-hooded figure: Try to make contact.
Narrator: So they created a wormhole from some dying reach of the cosmos, trying to get here.
Speech bubble (small): But we weren't exactly survivin'...
Speech bubble: We've got to try!
Speech bubble: Yes sir.
Narrator: But they miscalculated, put their portal too close to the surface.
Narrator: Every few years another ship full of living beings crashes in this desolate strip of the Arctic.
Narrator: It happens so fast each time, they can neither save themselves nor signal home.
Speech bubble: Nothing, sir.
Speech bubble: No survivors.
Narrator: And so all we find is their strewn carcasses, flash-frozen on the endless permafrost.
Speech bubble: Hello?
Speech bubble: Gak!
Speech bubble: Notify headquarters. Prepare the thawer ships for loading.
Final panel (an exterior shot of a rib-shack restaurant building with a sign): M. RIB is BACK
Votey: (none)
Alt text
A somber, painterly SMBC comic set in a dark, snowy Arctic landscape. Across several panels, parka-hooded figures stand over a crashed vehicle while a grim narrator describes alien refugees: beings who opened a wormhole from a dying corner of the cosmos to escape something, but miscalculated and placed their portal too close to the surface. Every few years another ship full of living creatures crashes onto this desolate Arctic strip, dying too fast to save themselves or signal home, leaving only frozen carcasses on the permafrost. The mournful, epic tone builds until the final panel undercuts it completely: a brightly lit fast-food rib restaurant with a sign reading 'M. RIB is BACK.' The dialogue's order to 'prepare the thawer ships for loading' reveals the solemn rescuers are actually harvesting the alien corpses as meat for the McRib-style sandwich. Votey: none.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.