Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

This comic explores the tension between recognizing the harms of modern technology and being unable to escape its grip. A parent confronts their child about excessive screen time, and the child respon

This comic plays on the trope of a person returning after a long absence to find things have changed dramatically. A woman named Celine returns, and someone greets her enthusiastically, recalling how

This comic tackles the classic theological and philosophical question of why bad things happen to good people (the problem of theodicy) through a darkly comedic lens. God is asked directly why bad thi

This comic presents a funeral from the perspectives of different family members, each generation processing the death of "Pop" (grandfather/father) with decreasing emotional sophistication -- until th

This comic takes the common therapeutic advice about not "bottling up your feelings" and subjects it to absurd literalism. A therapist-like figure tells someone they need to stop bottling up their fee

This is a compact, sharp comic about bedtime anxiety and the fear of the dark -- reimagined for adults. A parent tells their child to come to bed, but the child is hesitant, saying there's a "document

This comic is a single-panel political satire about conspiracy theories and the concept of shadowy elites. The top panel shows a gathering of well-dressed people on what appears to be a yacht or balco

This comic engages with the debate around AI-generated art. In the first panel, a character dismisses AI-generated art by saying: "This AI-generated art is garbage. There's no soul, there's no meaning

This comic is a historical anachronism joke. A woman in a period dress (likely 17th century) is caught by someone who asks: "Princess! Why is there a master Flemish portrait artist under your skirts?"

This comic satirizes the academic and philosophical obsession with defining and categorizing humanity. A lecturer explains that "in modernity, many scholars have opposed the term 'homo sapiens' -- 'wi

This comic imagines a business presentation about Jurassic Park, the fictional dinosaur theme park from the movie franchise. A suited executive stands before a chart showing rising revenue, presenting

This comic depicts a conversation between two people walking through what appears to be a forest or outdoor setting. One person (a skeptic) criticizes people who are "quick to dismiss things" by sayin

This comic shows a classroom scene where a teacher addresses her students: "All right kids, today we're going to once again work on..." The students enthusiastically sing out in unison: "Not staring t

This comic presents a theological conversation between a person and God (depicted as a glowing entity in the night sky). The person asks God why the universe needs to be "open and loving," and God rep

This comic is about the potential of language and communication. In the opening panels, one character tells another that they're going to give them a gift: "You'll be smarter, but don't expect to see

This is a long-form comic retelling (or riffing on) the story of Pinocchio, the wooden puppet who wants to become a real boy. The comic appears to follow Pinocchio through various adventures and misad

This comic is a Halloween-themed strip. A child comes to a door saying "Trick or treat." The adult at the door asks, "I don't get it. What are you?" The child responds: "I'm just a kid. I'm not trying

This comic shows what appears to be a meeting or presentation setting. One character asks a profound question: "Do you ever realize suddenly, and with awful clarity, that we've become incapable of com

This comic is a meta-announcement from Zach Weinersmith (the comic's creator) rather than a traditional joke strip. It introduces the reader to his wife Kelly Weinersmith, describing her accomplishmen

This comic contrasts two reactions to a child's misbehavior. In the first panel, labeled something like the setup, an adult (likely a parent or teacher) catches a child named Johnnie beating up anothe

The comic plays on the famous Zen Buddhist koan, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" A student monk asks a master this question in a forest setting. The master tells the student that when he rea

The comic shows a sea cucumber watching a video on a laptop. The video features another sea cucumber making a provocative claim: "Oh, females SAY they don't care about size and length but you KNOW if

The comic shows two men at a table. One, a bald muscular man, smugly dismisses the other's protein shakes: "Oh you like protein shakes? That's cute." When asked what he eats every day, he answers: "A

The comic is a multi-panel strip involving a doctor's visit with a wordplay twist. A woman tells a man, "I'm kind of nervous. I have some bad news, babe." He asks, "What?" She says, "You're stegnant."

The comic shows a person at a podium presenting a "literary conspiracy theory" to a small audience. The theory: "Think about it. His name is Captain Hook. But there is no way he was born with the name

This multi-panel comic explores a math-themed riff on Platonism. A person holds up three fingers and says, "Platonism in mathematics is stupid. Numbers don't exist. Look, here are two fingers." Anothe

The comic shows two people in what appears to be a startup meeting or pitch scenario. One says: "That's true, yeah, but we can market it as an execution device to get funding until we get the second h

This multi-panel comic tackles the philosophy of consciousness through a dialogue between a human and what appears to be an alien or robot (a grey figure). The grey figure argues: "I don't think human

The comic presents a "horror movie idea" in which "all the headless hunks from romance novel covers are alive and out for revenge." We see a muscular, shirtless, headless male torso (the classic roman

This multi-panel comic tackles utilitarian ethics through a drowning-child thought experiment. In the first panel, a utilitarian sees a child drowning and thinks about whether to save the child. The u

This comic imagines what would happen if King Arthur returned in Britain's hour of need, as the Arthurian legend promises. The joke is that Arthur, a medieval warrior king, is hilariously unsuited for

In this comic, a woman asks God whether we are all living in a simulation. God casually confirms it, saying "I think so, yeah." The woman then rattles off classic simulation-hypothesis arguments: the

This comic starts with a father telling his son the old warning: "Son, you shouldn't masturbate -- you'll go blind!" The son responds with alarm: "Dad, oh my god, that's just an old wives' tale!" But

In this comic, two friends are having a pleasant, agreeable conversation. One asks what the other wants to do; they're both "great," they agree on things, and they're "talking weirdly" nicely to each

This comic is a multi-panel meditation on the difficulty of understanding the human brain. It begins with someone asking if we will ever understand the brain, and a scientist explaining that even with

This comic features a conversation between a person and sentient trees (or tree-like creatures). The trees declare that machines will never excel at art. When asked why not, a tree explains that its l

This comic depicts a classic fantasy scenario: a hero has slain a dragon and asks for the princess's hand in marriage. But the princess says "hold up" and starts questioning the logic. The dragon was

This comic tackles the Fermi Paradox -- the question of why, given the vastness of the universe, we have not encountered intelligent alien life. A person asks God why no intelligent species has been f

This comic parodies RPG (role-playing game) quest mechanics. A character approaches what appears to be a quest-giver and says "I'm on a side-quest for drugs." The quest-giver asks what they want, and

This is a single-panel comic with a caption. A child is in bed, and a massive, monstrous creature looms over them saying "Aaahh, so you have found me, curious one." A tiny fairy figure is also visible

This comic explores the idea that complex human emotions are just combinations of a few fundamental emotional states -- an analogy to how colors can be built from primary colors. The first speaker pro

This comic is a parody of the famous "monolith scene" from Stanley Kubrick's film *2001: A Space Odyssey* (1968). In the film, a mysterious black monolith appears among prehistoric apes and somehow ca

This is a long-form comic that reimagines Charlie Brown from the *Peanuts* comic strip as an epic dramatic character. The comic narrates Charlie Brown's life as though it were a serious literary saga:

This is a single-panel comic showing a clown standing on a chair in front of a classroom of students. The caption reads: "Having clowns teach Sex Ed was unorthodox, but it certainly improved retention

This comic follows a person's life through a series of pivotal moments, each punctuated by someone yelling "BINGO!" at an inappropriate time. In the first panel, someone declares love and the other pe

This comic features Batman and Robin (or characters resembling them) discussing why they spend so much money on combat equipment, costumes, and stunts instead of funding efficient global health interv

This comic shows two rugged, working-class men (possibly construction workers or miners, given their hard hats). One describes his "newest patent": a machine that detects when twelve syllables have be

This single-panel comic shows a NASA scientist presenting findings from Mars. The screen behind them displays microscopic particles, and the scientist announces: "Microplastics. Microplastics everywhe

This comic presents a series of panels showing how different scientific fields originated. Biology is described as "correcting ideas about life, classification, and how it comes into being" -- correct

This comic shows a mother confronting her young son Billy, asking "So, Billy, what you're saying is you told me a lie today." Billy meekly confirms and asks "Am I grounded?" Instead of a normal punish