Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

## The Joke The comic opens with a statement along the lines of "I think women like sex as much as men." A second character agrees: "Yes." The conversation then takes a turn. The first speaker elabo

In this comic, a professor (or lecturer) is giving a presentation about the various systems of measurement used around the world. She begins by listing well-known systems such as the metric system and

This comic is a meditation on existential dread framed through a mundane domestic scenario. A character laments, "God, why isn't there more intelligent life in the universe?" -- a reference to the Fer

This comic depicts a scene with what appears to be an authority figure or guide walking a group through a corridor or passage, delivering a speech about how social media networks were originally built

This comic features two panels, each set on a beach with cavemen looking out at the ocean. In the first panel, labeled "CAVEMAN," a caveman simply says, "Us not know what on other side of ocean" -- a

This comic riffs on the story of Adam and Eve from the Book of Genesis. In the biblical account, Adam and Eve are the first humans created by God, and their disobedience (eating the forbidden fruit) b

This comic subverts the classic fairy tale trope of a princess locked in a tower. It opens with a princess happily singing about being alone and protected in her tower -- a setup that evokes Rapunzel

This comic features a conversation about the word "abracadabra" and its etymology. One character explains that "abracadabra" has roots in multiple ancient languages: it comes from Latin meaning "to va

This comic plays on the dual meaning of the word "priors" in a parent-child conversation. A child asks, "Mommy, where do priors come from?" In Bayesian statistics, "priors" (or prior probabilities) ar

This comic depicts a scene at what appears to be a meeting or gathering of a disreputable organization. Someone introduces a new member to the group, describing it as a "perfectly legitimate organizat

This comic is about the quest for a "unified theory" in physics -- the long-sought goal of finding a single theoretical framework that reconciles all fundamental forces of nature (gravity, electromagn

## The Joke The comic explores the question "Why do men have so many weird fetishes?" A character lying in bed proposes that during sex, the male brain is not thinking about the sex itself — it is th

## The Joke A character declares "I hate that phrase" (presumably some commonly used expression). Another character launches into a defense of science as a "neverending process" — explaining that sci

## The Joke A man addresses the viewer directly, announcing his plans for a generic, wholesome suburban day: he has just woken up in his "generic suburban home" and plans to "feed metal shavings to p

## The Joke The comic is a multi-panel strip featuring a cat explaining to its human owner how the relationship between cats and humans actually works. The setup appears to show a gun being cocked (a

## The Joke A priest or theologian is explaining to a bishop or cardinal that in parthenogenetic animals most closely related to humans, when they reproduce asexually, the offspring have XX chromosom

## The Joke A parent and child are looking at a toy, with the parent exclaiming "Oh my God! A toy tiger!" The comic notes that "these people spent decades breeding itty bitty cats to look like a tige

## The Joke A character excitedly announces that "you can buy personal, commercial, racing, planting, garden, different colors" — enumerating an extensive variety of consumer drones available for pur

## The Joke A person is at their front door on Halloween, greeting trick-or-treaters. They exclaim "Oh how cute! Iron Man and a spooooky witch! Let me just extend my ovipositor and lay some crunchy a

## The Joke The comic shows a copy of the Holy Bible with a blurb on the cover reading: "Not bad" — Zach Weinersmith (the author of SMBC). The caption below reads: "Life tip: you can re-release any

## The Joke A character corrects someone's pronunciation, insisting that "nuclear" should be pronounced "nuclear" (presumably correcting the common mispronunciation "nucular"). The other character is

This comic features two women walking past a field of sheep. One asks the sheep breeder what she's breeding them for: "Mmm, ahh, or aww?" The breeder has a horrified realization: "I... oh god those ar

This comic tackles the problem of theodicy -- the theological question of why an all-powerful, all-good God permits evil and suffering. A person in bed is praying to God, acknowledging that God is omn

This comic shows a conversation between a visitor and a group of monks on a mountainside. The visitor asks what they think of the idea that "impermanence is good" as a permanent, foundational belief -

This comic features a conversation between two people about what it takes to be happy. One person lists desires: wanting to be rich, famous, and powerful. The other responds that those things won't br

This comic shows two men arguing about which author wrote the most widely cited but least actually read books. One claims James Joyce wrote the most widely cited books that nobody has actually read. A

This comic depicts a student approaching a wise master on a mountaintop, asking him to calculate the expected value of seeking "total spiritual oneness" versus simply gaining worldly success. The mast

This comic shows a family dinner scene where an older man (likely a father or uncle) is ranting about conspiracy theories -- specifically about "magnetic microchips in the vaccines" and urging others

This comic shows a man approaching a hotel front desk, telling the clerk: "Good afternoon. I'd like to boldly work myself to an immense climax over the course of several hours." The clerk responds: "P

This is not a traditional joke comic but rather one of SMBC creator Zach Weinersmith's periodic book review comics. In it, Weinersmith announces that he is trying a new format: posting book reviews wi

This comic shows a sequence about AI-augmented humans. In the first panels, a man with some kind of brain-computer interface brags about the technological improvements: "With all the improvements, why

This comic plays on the intersection of theology and philosophy of religion. In the first panel, a character says they've been thinking of converting to a more spiritual life, and another responds ent

This comic shows a person telling their partner (or housemate): "I kept the house exactly as you left it. So perfect. Your memory is so precious to me that I dare not touch a thing, for fear that some

The comic presents a mysterious, almost cosmic declaration: "There exists a sequence of symbols, rather short, that would grant to you a perfect understanding of the universe, but which you will never

This comic satirizes a certain type of enthusiastic permaculture or ecological gardening evangelist. In the first panel, someone admires a beautiful garden, and the gardener explains that after many y

This comic riffs on Arthurian legend and political philosophy. The scene shows a wizard (resembling Merlin or a similar fantasy archetype) standing with two hand puppets, describing the situation: "It

This comic imagines a "Logical Positivist detective show." The scene depicts a classic murder mystery setup: a detective stands in a room with a body on the floor, a woman in a red dress (the classic

This comic shows a family watching fireworks. The children are complaining -- "Aww! Come on!" and "Not again!" -- while a parent enthusiastically declares: "You should enjoy it more, children! It's te

This comic is about hot dogs and the mismatch between the number of buns and hot dogs in standard packages. A father tells his son: "Son, we don't need any fancy math. We just need dog company." But t

This comic takes the famous action movie one-liner "I came to kick ass and chew bubblegum, and I'm all out of bubblegum" (originally from the 1988 film "They Live" starring Roddy Piper) and subjects i

This comic shows a man standing below several floating objects (appearing to be bowling pins and a ball) descending from a heavenly light, with someone saying: "Actually Frank, the REAL heaven was the

This comic imagines a far-future scenario on Mars where a scientist presents the "Out of Ass-ica Hypothesis" -- a play on the "Out of Africa" hypothesis, which is the widely accepted scientific model

This comic is about the frustration of being interrupted mid-sentence, escalating into a meta-joke about grammar and punctuation. In the first panel, someone is telling a story and gets interrupted b

This comic features a grandmother and grandchild walking through a wooded area. The grandmother says, "Every time I see these petals, it reminds me of Grampa." The child says, "Please stop." The grand

This comic presents "Prank idea #312211" -- trapping someone in a permanent bedmaking loop by giving them a three-sided fitted sheet. The man in the comic is shown struggling with a fitted sheet, sayi

This comic tackles the Liar's Paradox and philosophical standards of reference, rendered in the style of an academic lecture. In the first panel, a professor presents the classic self-referential sen

This comic shows two sign-carrying doomsayers side by side. The traditional religious doomsayer holds a sign reading "THE END IS NIGH," while the tech-oriented doomsayer next to him holds a sign readi

This comic features an alien (a tall green figure) addressing a group of humans. The alien reveals that it has introduced a "gene drive" into the human population -- a real genetic engineering concept

This comic is a parody of gritty film noir remakes, applied to an unexpected source: a physics textbook. In the first panel, one character angrily confronts another: "How in the FLUX did you find ou

This is a longer-format comic exploring what would happen if a Superman-like superhero actually tried to help humanity in practical ways rather than just punching villains. The comic begins with the