Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

This comic plays on the popular science fiction trope that once artificial intelligence achieves sentience, it will inevitably try to destroy humanity. A scientist's robot announces it has upgraded it

This comic is titled "Do-It-Yourself Machines: The Skeptic Confuser" and presents step-by-step instructions for building a prank device. The instructions are: (1) find an old computer case, (2) fill i

This comic depicts a scientist who has achieved a breakthrough in DNA data storage, successfully encoding 900 terabytes of data into a single gram of E. coli bacteria. When asked what data was stored,

This comic is set at "Engineer-Con 42," where an inventor is presenting a device that embeds into a person's molar and automatically corrects their use of "who" and "whom" by adding or subtracting the

Titled "The Difference Between Human Beings and Geneticists," this comic shows two scientists -- Frank and his female colleague -- who have just gotten official paperwork for a gene they discovered, g

A prudish woman scolds a young boy named Billy who is looking at anthills outdoors: "Billy! No looking at anthills! God shaped them like nipples to tempt you to sin!" Billy tries to protest with "But-

This comic consists of a single graph plotting "Appropriateness of Chewbacca Impression" (Y-axis) against "Point During Sex" (X-axis), with the X-axis labeled with stages: Foreplay, Intercourse, Orgas

The comic opens with the declaration: "We were tired of bullies." A bully is shown tormenting someone, saying "Some day..." The narration continues: "We rounded them up and sent them to Mars, so they

This comic retells the classic Aesop'''s fable of "The Ant and the Grasshopper" with a bitterly modern, pessimistic twist. It begins traditionally: "The ant worked all day while the grasshopper played

This comic presents a satirical take on overpopulation and evolutionary genetics. It begins with the narration "We realized overpopulation was a problem" over a panel showing a massive crowd of identi

A pair of parents are discussing their son Billy. The father says, "Honey, I think Billy'''s gonna come out of the closet. We'''d better be ready." The mother asks, "Really? How do you know?" He repli

A woman named Charlotte is lying in bed with her husband Johnny, who says he has a confession to make. She dismisses it, saying it'''s too late for anything to bother her. She runs through the standar

A teacher is reading "The Great Gatsby" to a class. A student named Bobby eagerly says "Yes, Bobby?" and the student asks, "Can we start reading another book?" The teacher responds, "No. That'''s not

A woman thanks a female doctor for helping out, and the doctor casually mentions that she also "vaccinated" the woman against death. The woman is amazed -- "Wow! They can do that?" -- and the doctor c

This comic contrasts a "good friend" with a "typical friend" in the context of comforting someone after a breakup. In the first panel, a woman asks her good friend why her boyfriend told her to "fuck

This comic offers a cut-out T. Rex illustration with instructions for "improving" editorial cartoons. The five-step process is: (1) cut out the T. Rex, (2) find a typical editorial cartoon (shown as a

This comic is a post-coital pillow talk scene in which a couple debates determinism and free will. The man argues that if every moment is just the product of an earlier state, then free will cannot ex

This comic plays on the stereotype of nerds who pretend to be knowledgeable about sports to seem more well-rounded, especially in social or dating situations. The bespectacled man at the table is atte

This comic imagines a scenario in which a black hole is approaching Earth at near-light speed, and the President is informed there is no means of escape for any human being. In response to this existe

This comic explains the real evolutionary concept of "sexually antagonistic selection," which is the idea that some genetic traits benefit one sex while being detrimental to the other. The comic uses

This Christmas Day comic takes the classic pickup line format -- "You must be [something], because [romantic compliment]" -- and gives it a grotesque medical twist. A nerdy-looking man at a bar tells

This comic is a riff on the classic story trope of a ghostly mentor appearing to help a struggling student, except here the ghost is physicist John Bardeen. Bardeen introduces himself and lists his ex

This wordless comic offers a dark reimagining of the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer story. In the first panel, a newborn fawn lies next to its mother while a large buck (presumably the father) looks o

This comic is a guide titled "Talking Cool About Sex" that parodies the "I like my [women/men] like I like my [thing]" joke format. Each row of the table pairs a category with a description that works

This comic, titled "Sad Truth: All Data Is Subjective," shows the same woman presenting the same statistic in two different ways. On the "Bad Version" side, she says with concern: "One quarter of our

This comic tracks a relationship through several years, centered on one recurring trait: the woman finishes the man's sentences. In the first year, the man finds it charming and says "I love the way y

This comic imagines a holiday action movie mashup featuring "Captain Chanukah," a superhero-styled character who confronts Santa Claus. Captain Chanukah greets Santa with "Shalom," and Santa demands t

This comic uses real scientific facts to set up a joke about male insecurity regarding anatomy. It begins by stating several true facts: there is roughly one atom of hydrogen per cubic meter of space

This comic depicts the classic scenario of a child repeatedly asking "Why?" in response to every answer a parent gives. It begins with the father telling his child to go to their room. The child asks

This comic contrasts the behavior of "Homo Sapiens" (regular humans) with "Homo Economicus," the theoretical perfectly rational, self-interested agent used in economic models. In the first pair of pan

This comic plays on the culture war over car emblems related to religion and evolution. It shows a sequence where a man has a "Truth" fish (the Christian ichthys/Jesus fish with "Truth" inside it) on

This comic depicts a father sitting on the bed with his daughter, beginning "the sex talk." He tells her, "Sweetie, I think you're old enough for the sex talk." She responds, "Okay." But instead of ac

This comic shows Santa Claus at his desk with his filing system visible behind him. Rather than the traditional binary "Nice" and "Naughty" lists, Santa has added a third category: "Not Bad, But Kind

This comic is not a traditional comic strip but rather a promotional image for a downloadable card game called "Relationship: A Card Game." The image simply shows the title and an instruction to "clic

This comic introduces "The Graphvella," a concept that any story can be told in three charts or fewer. It proceeds to demonstrate this with three movie genres: zombie movies, romantic comedies, and zo

This comic references the famous ancient Greek historical account by Herodotus of the Battle of Thermopylae. In the original story, when a Persian messenger warned the Spartan soldier Dienekes that th

This comic contrasts "Science Advocates" with actual "Scientists" when asked about the importance of trapping antimatter. In 2010, CERN made headlines by successfully trapping antihydrogen atoms for t

This comic humorously depicts how the experience of parenthood can shift a person's moral reasoning. The two panels show the same woman at two different stages: as a "Parent for One Day" and as a "Par

This comic shows two brothers playing "Keep Away" in the middle of a surgical operation. One surgeon is tossing what appears to be an organ while another tries to grab it, as a third surgeon protests:

This comic illustrates the concept that human consciousness is not a single unified entity by depicting a brain arguing with itself about attraction. The caption reads: "Anyone who thinks he has a sin

This comic takes on the classic theological paradox known as the "omnipotence paradox": Can God create a stone so heavy that even He cannot lift it? A person standing on clouds poses the question to G

This comic is built around the concept of a spoonerism, a verbal error in which the initial sounds of two words are accidentally swapped. A man tells his friend he was fired from his job at a pet stor

This comic depicts a woman caught in bed with another man by her partner. In the final panel labeled "Moments Ago," she is shown launching into an enthusiastic science monologue: "Everything is in flu

This comic shows an elderly grandmother confronting a young boy named Billy, demanding to know "Why? Why, Billy?!" while Billy protests his innocence, claiming he was only making faces at her. The sce

This comic is titled "This is why people should learn statistics." A woman declares she will not fly in a plane because they are not safe from terrorists. In the second panel, she is shown driving a c

This comic features "Uncomfortable Truthasaurus," a dinosaur character who addresses children to correct misconceptions they may have picked up from after-school specials and popular culture before th

This comic depicts an absurdly overbearing mother-in-law who has trapped a couple in a sealed chamber with limited oxygen, demanding they produce grandchildren within 30 minutes or suffocate. The husb

This comic is titled "Sad Truth: Just because someone agrees with you on one thing, it doesn't mean you're on the same side." It presents three vignettes showing people who superficially agree on a po

This comic follows a comedian who prays to God, asking to be allowed to die in a humorous way. The scene then jumps forward 50 years, showing the same man now elderly and on his deathbed. He asks wher

This comic shows several sensationalist science magazine and newspaper headlines: "Will the World End in 6 Months?", "Is a Universal Cure Around the Corner?", and "Was Darwin Wrong?" These are all exa