Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

## The Joke A child asks their father, "Daddy, can I ask you something? Is Santa real?" The father struggles with the decision across several panels. First he thinks about how he wants to tell the tr

## The Joke A person is browsing the internet and notices that online sex ads have become "uncomfortably realistic over time." The ad on screen reads: "Attractive local singles who are just absolutel

## The Joke A person asks a cartoonist what the secret to becoming a cartoonist is. The cartoonist gives the standard inspirational advice: "Practice, practice, practice. Learn things. Maybe travel.

## The Joke A woman in bed notices a hair on the dresser and angrily declares, "What the -- that hair on the dresser isn't mine!" She confronts her partner, accusing him: "You've been seeing Medusa a

## The Joke A man complains that he feels like garbage. His friend offers the common self-help advice: "You should trust your body. Listen to yourself. Your body tells you what you need." The man dec

## The Joke The comic shows the evolution of targeted merchandise advertising. In the first panel, labeled "Targeted Merchandise Ads (Current)," a person sees an online ad for a t-shirt that says "Co

## The Joke This is a "Soonish" promotional comic. In the first panel, a woman explains that she wants to buy some ethanol and a monthly subscription to a service that sends trains containing informa

## The Joke The comic shows two parrots on a branch. One parrot is holding up a photograph of itself in an attractive pose, showing it to the other parrot. The caption reads: "With training, the parr

## The Joke A caterpillar asks a beetle, "Hey, Beetle. Can I borrow one hundred bucks? I'll pay you back double next month." The beetle cheerfully agrees: "Sure thing, Caterpillar." The next panel re

## The Joke An aide rushes to the President with urgent news: "Mr. President! An asteroid is heading directly for Los Angeles! We have 12 hours until impact!" The President dramatically demands: "Get

## The Joke The comic opens with someone excitedly making duck noises: "Quack! Quack! Quack! I'm a duck! Quack! Quack!" They then address a Catholic cardinal: "Oh! Cardinal Piacenza! How long have yo

## The Joke A man asks his partner, "Hey, wanna watch 'The House Channel'?" She responds, "I don't get it. It's just visions of our own existential decay." He insists: "You have to watch it to the en

## The Joke A man climbs a treacherous mountain to seek wisdom from a wise master perched at the top -- a classic trope in comics and storytelling. When he finally reaches the summit, he presents the

## The Joke A survivalist introduces visitors to his bunker, explaining he is preparing for the imminent collapse of civilization. He proudly shows off various survival supplies: water ("no water? yo

## The Joke The comic shows a futuristic-looking person (possibly a cyborg, given the mechanical goggle-like eyes) in the year 2358, reading a book. The caption explains this is "January 1, 2358: the

## The Joke The comic plays on the classic haunted-house horror trope where a house is built on an ancient burial ground. A person announces: "I''m afraid this house is haunted. It was built hundreds

## The Joke A bespectacled scientist-type figure gives a presentation that starts with a real medical fact: America has a blood pressure problem, with far too many people having a blood pressure surp

## The Joke A person expresses frustration about perspective in art: "Why how come in old paintings the perspective is really bad? Ordinary?" Another person explains that people didn''t just "not kno

## The Joke A person asks their peers how their high-achieving friends are doing. The responses are: "They''re doing badly" and "They''re doing well." When the person then reports on their own status

## The Joke Superman presents a hypothesis to other superheroes: what if having an immune system that constantly fights dangerous pathogens is actually important, and living in a perfectly clean envi

## The Joke The comic is divided into two panels labeled "Prediction" and "Reality." In the top panel, a mustachioed man (resembling a 19th-century intellectual or futurist) confidently predicts that

## The Joke Two people are having a conversation about evolution and fossils. One person challenges the other: "If you don''t believe in evolution, where do you think all these fossils came from?" Th

## The Joke A parent excitedly tells a friend: "It''s tough having small kids, but I''m looking forward to when they can help out. Imagine that happening!" A cynical older man then presents a graph h

## The Joke The comic depicts a historical scene in which one person receives a stone tablet covered in strange markings. When asked "What's this?", the messenger explains that "Aram" sent it -- the

## The Joke The comic opens with a news report about a real environmental phenomenon: rising ocean temperatures are altering turtle reproduction such that the vast majority of turtle offspring are fe

## The Joke The comic explores a classic theological paradox about free will and divine omnipotence. A person asks God two questions: "Are you all powerful?" (Yes) and "Do you have complete free will

## The Joke A little girl asks her father the classic child question: "Daddy, why do I have a belly button?" The father begins explaining that a long time ago, the belly button is where mommy was con

## The Joke The comic uses a "walks into a bar" joke structure to explore the philosophical problem of free will versus determinism. A human and a perfect simulation of that human walk into a bar. Th

## The Joke The comic retells the story of the Titanic from the perspective of penguins living on the iceberg. A penguin captain proudly declares their iceberg to be "the greatest iceberg in the hist

## The Joke A robot arrives at what appears to be Robot Heaven, complete with clouds, golden gates, and an angelic robot greeter who welcomes it. But the newly arrived robot quickly notices a problem

## The Joke A passenger in a taxi (apparently a teacher or professor, since they need graph paper for their students) asks the driver if there is a convenience store nearby. The driver gives directio

## The Joke A serious-looking man wearing glasses and a suit sits at a bar and orders "Occam's Cocktail." The caption below the panel simply reads: "A scientist orders whiskey." The joke is that "Oc

## The Joke The comic is titled "Know Your Ethical Conundrums" and presents a series of four panels, each posing an absurd ethical dilemma involving a famous philosopher or ethicist. Each scenario tw

## The Joke The comic depicts the "rise of the machines" — but instead of a dramatic Terminator-style robot uprising, the AI takeover is mundane and bureaucratic. The machines don't enslave humanity

## The Joke Superman is flying overhead, but instead of his usual confident demeanor, he is screaming in terror -- "AAAAAGH! AAAAAAGH! AAAAAGH!" -- as he soars above the city. Below, two criminals st

## The Joke A person prays to God, asking whether humans have free will. God responds "Certainly," but then qualifies it with an analogy: a mouse in a maze has a choice of infinite possible paths to

## The Joke Two women discuss fears about artificial intelligence. The first woman raises the classic concern: "You ever worry computers will become smart, then kill us?" The second woman has a diffe

## The Joke A man is telling a scary story, presumably at a campfire or similar setting. His tale of horror is: "And then... when he beheld the electric bill... it turned out the entire attic was poo

## The Joke An older man (likely meant to evoke a humanities professor or intellectual) speaks grandly about a dream: "Someday... someday we will unite the separate realms of the humanities and scien

## The Joke A bearded man asks a bespectacled critic seated at a desk, "How'd you like my novel?" The critic responds with a simple "Fine." Unsatisfied, the author pushes back: "That's not terribly u

## The Joke A physics professor stands at a blackboard under the heading "Funtime Activity: Ruining Students Forever." He declares: "The first thing a physics student must learn is vectors and scalar

## The Joke The comic riffs on the inspirational saying "When God closes a door, He opens a window." It plays out across four panels, each escalating the absurdity. Panel 1: A man looks at an open wi

## The Joke A man on a date tells a woman, "I should tell you: I'm not into women with too much... 'experience.'" Rather than being offended, the woman takes his statement to its logical conclusion:

## The Joke The comic retells the classic parable of the blind men and the elephant. A group of blind men touch different parts of an elephant: one feels the tusk and thinks it is hard and thin, anot

## The Joke A man explains to a woman that up until the 1940s or so, the phrase "make love" simply meant doing romantic things like courting or flirting. Over time, it got "crowded out" by the modern

## The Joke A child tells their father "Daddy, we got you a surprise!" The father immediately declares "Impossible!" and launches into a logical argument for why he cannot be surprised. He reasons th

## The Joke At the headquarters of "KlorpCo," an executive announces that they need to find a way to charge 50% more per klorp (a fictional product). One employee suggests they could improve the prod

## The Joke This is a lengthy comic that follows a sprawling narrative about the justice system and its many absurdities. The comic appears to depict a sequence of interactions involving lawyers, jud

## The Joke One man raises the classic AI existential risk scenario: we develop AI, then the AI makes a smarter AI, which makes an even smarter AI, and so on in a recursive intelligence explosion tha

## The Joke A woman asks her husband why they have not had sex in six weeks. He blames philosophy, specifically citing Epictetus, the Stoic philosopher, who taught that you should not admire your wif