Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

This comic plays on the classic pop culture trope of "three kids stacked in a trenchcoat" pretending to be an adult -- most famously associated with Vincent Adultman from the TV show BoJack Horseman.

In this comic, a person is reading a recipe blog on their computer. The screen shows a "Homemade Mimosa Recipe" that begins with a lengthy personal narrative: "I was trying to create the perfect mimos

This comic features a conversation between a human and a robot (or AI) about the economics of coffee. In the first panel, the robot explains a scheme: listen to a podcast, hear a commercial for coffee

In this comic, two characters are having a conversation. One excitedly shares that their dog (or pet) brought something home one day from somewhere -- a creature from "biology." They describe it as "g

This comic shows a person walking a dog in a forest setting. In the first panel, the person asks "What's a good boy? What makes a good boy?" and then begins philosophizing: "A good boy is one shaped b

In this comic, a woman asks God: "God, where is all the other life in the universe?" -- a reference to the Fermi Paradox, the famous question of why, given the vast size and age of the universe, we ha

In this comic, a teacher (or professor) is lecturing a class. He tells the students: "And class, did you know that the nitrogen in your body was acquired via humanity gaining access to unlimited nitro

In this single-panel comic, a doctor cheerfully tells a patient: "Good news! Your body is over 90% metal!" The patient, sitting on an examination table in a hospital gown, looks unamused and skeptical

This comic features aliens (green, slug-like creatures) discussing the taste of farmed humans versus wild-caught humans. One alien says: "I don't get it. We fed them fresh ingredients, let them free-r

In this comic, two characters are having a conversation. One asks: "God, how come bad things happen to good people?" (a classic theological question about the problem of evil). The other begins to ans

The comic opens with one character saying "Dude, it's like, pointless," to which the other replies "Of course not." The first character then elaborates that there are a small number of wealthy, powerf

The comic depicts a biblical-era scene with two figures observing a baby (implied to be the infant Jesus) who is "walking backward, on all fours, and rotating its head in circles." One observer asks,

The comic shows a man at a podium preparing to give a speech. In his internal monologue, he thinks: "I have to say something nice in my speech about him, but this guy is a moron. How can I say somethi

The comic features a conversation between two characters about the enteric nervous system -- the network of neurons embedded in the lining of the gastrointestinal tract, sometimes called the "second b

This multi-panel comic depicts a conversation between humans and aliens about the nature of life in the universe. The alien initially argues that the humans can't really be alive because their biochem

The comic is a single-panel joke showing a man standing inside what appears to be a Klein bottle, with a prison guard saying "Enjoy parole, sir." The caption reads: "In Klein-jail, technically you're

The comic shows a person trying to check their credit score, and another person asks "Do you want to use the app?" The first person asks what they mean, and the second launches into an increasingly in

The comic features a conversation about paradoxical statements. One character tells another (who appears to be God): "Hey God, when you come, you admitted to paradoxical statements, like 'this sentenc

The comic shows Waldo (from the "Where's Waldo?" / "Where's Wally?" book series) standing in a desolate landscape after being found. He says to the viewer: "Yes, you found me. Ah, but are you any happ

The comic presents a fairy-tale scenario where a witch has cursed a princess, and a prince must deliver "true love's kiss" to awaken her. But the witch has been reading scientific articles arguing tha

This comic imagines a scenario in which cube-shaped rocks are a sentient species deserving of preservation. A geologist (or naturalist) explains to a visitor that when rocks undergo enough geological

This comic depicts God explaining to an angel (or possibly a newly created being) how the miracle system works. God says the system is "pretty great" but clarifies that He never does anything big -- "

This comic tackles the philosophical question of whether Batman or Superman is a better superhero, but immediately pivots to evolutionary biology. One character argues that if you go back far enough,

This comic features two characters observing a beehive. One muses, "Wouldn't it be nice to be a bee?" The other responds with what bees' lives actually entail: their entire existence is spent going fr

This comic shows a dystopian scene where humans are enslaved or subjugated by robots/machines. Humans are shown in chains, laboring under the supervision of a large imposing robot. Below the image, a

This comic features two characters discussing the word "perk." One explains that the word "perk" (as in a job benefit or bonus) more or less derives from "perquisite," which originally referred to dis

This comic depicts an interaction between a human and an alien named Zortran. The human throws a ball and excitedly says "Watch this!" as it bounces. The alien observes the ball appearing and disappea

This comic addresses the immigrant experience and language. It opens with a figure standing before the Statue of Liberty, narrating: "They'll never understand how in my mother's tongue, I was not just

This comic shows a scientist proudly announcing that they have "successfully made these mountain gorillas into hat-wearing elitists, raised from birth amid wealthy people who consider themselves middl

This comic depicts a first-contact scenario between a human and an alien. The alien is excited to meet a human and share knowledge. But when the alien shows the human a classic optical illusion (a duc

The comic depicts a conversation between two fish -- an adult and a young one. The adult fish says, "Look, Billy, if we go on land to have babies, no way will my dad ever find out." The young fish dec

The comic features a conversation between a human woman and an alien blob-like creature about brain size and intelligence. The woman asks why evolution does not just give humans bigger brains, since t

The comic shows a scene from Jewish folklore involving a Golem -- the mythical clay creature animated to protect the Jewish community. A rabbi scolds the Golem: "The city is under attack maybe once a

The comic shows aliens arriving on Earth to congratulate humanity on the development of "the warp drive," saying they have been waiting for humans to reach a certain technological milestone. However,

The comic depicts a moral dilemma: a person finds that an old lady has dropped a hundred dollars and debates whether to return it. Their conscience (depicted as a floating angel figure) argues they sh

The comic depicts a political press conference where a candidate announces the selection of their vice presidential running mate. In the event of the candidate's death or incapacitation, their life pa

The comic features a person praying to or questioning evolution (depicted as a cosmic entity), asking, "Why are jaws so jaw-ey?" -- essentially asking why the human jaw has its particular form and qui

The comic shows what appears to be a job interview or evaluation. An evaluator tells the subject that their political views are "well-substantiated," their knowledge of history is "excellent," they re

The comic presents a classic trolley problem scenario, but reframed in a fantasy/medieval RPG setting. The setup reads: "Scenario: You are in a runaway sled headed toward Grothmir the Elder." The char

The comic is structured as a series of exchanges exploring insecure masculinity. In the first panel, a man is shown a picture of a muscular male model and asked why he keeps looking at it. He defensiv

This comic depicts a stack of books with increasingly absurd titles riffing on John Milton's epic poems "Paradise Lost" (1667) and "Paradise Regained" (1671). The sequence starts with the real, canoni

This comic is a parody of Indiana Jones, specifically riffing on the ethical tensions inherent in archaeology, particularly Western archaeology's complicated history with other cultures' artifacts. I

This comic plays on the dual meaning of "inappropriate" in an astronomical context. A bearded man is explaining something scientific, noting that "it just makes me really uncomfortable when the partic

This comic takes the concept of gyroscopic precession — the phenomenon where a spinning object's axis of rotation shifts in response to an applied torque — and applies it in an absurd, sexual context.

This comic is a parody of the "old warrior recounting tales of past glory" trope, set in a Viking or medieval raiding context. In the first panel, a large bearded warrior reminisces: "I remember the

This comic explores the idea that humans are uniquely strange in the animal kingdom for eating things that are objectively terrible for them — or rather, for how they prepare food. The first panel ha

This comic satirizes both economic doom-and-gloom news coverage and the financial technology/startup world. Panel one sets up a news broadcast: "Ladies and gentlemen, Congress, I have bad economic ne

This comic plays on the phrase "I've been a bad, bad girl" — typically associated with flirtatious or suggestive contexts. In the first panel, a woman says "I've been a bad, bad girl." A man responds

This comic imagines a world where corporations can patent sexual acts, turning intellectual property law into bedroom comedy. A woman says: "I just sent a $10 licensing fee to Microsoft." The man ask

This comic satirizes the dismissive attitude that STEM-oriented people sometimes have toward the humanities, and then flips the script. In the first panel, a man says: "These humanities people are al