Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

## The Joke A child runs to his father, terrified that there is a monster in his closet. The father casually corrects him: it is not a monster, it is just Death (personified as a hooded skeleton, the

## The Joke A father tells his son that senility runs in their family and that it is probably only another decade or so before the son starts seeing symptoms. But rather than offering comfort or advi

## The Joke Two women are discussing a man that one of them (Sally) is interested in. Her friend warns her not to go for him, saying "the guy is a human peacock." She elaborates sensibly: sure, there

## The Joke A woman quotes Pierre-Simon Laplace to God, referencing his famous thought experiment about an intellect that could know all forces and positions in the universe and thereby predict the e

## The Joke Captain Kirk from Star Trek is shown talking to what appears to be another crew member, making a philosophical argument about the transporter. He explains that, from a philosophical persp

## The Joke Two fantasy adventurers are in a dungeon and discover there is only one growth potion left, but they both want it. One suggests they flip a coin to decide fairly. The bearded warrior refu

## The Joke A couple visits a doctor about fertility issues. The woman explains that before they got married, they decided they would be "r strategists" -- producing a vast number of low-quality offs

## The Joke A child asks her father why she cannot say "shit." The father tells her he does not care if she says it, but if his parents hear it, they will be mad at him. We then flash back through ge

## The Joke A villain presents a mother with the classic "Sophie's Choice" dilemma: choose one of your children to be killed -- your son or your daughter. The mother responds with outrage: "How can y

## The Joke A nun tells her class, "Remember, kids, every day is a gift from God!" A red-haired child angrily challenges this: why did God "gift" her a day where her dog got run over by the ambulance

## The Joke A scientist (depicted as a monkey-like character) is giving a lecture titled "On the Etiology of Fuckers," which is a mock-academic way of saying "on the origins/causes of terrible people

## The Joke A person stands before what appears to be a judge or official, explaining that they have realized something and would like to get their name legally changed. The official responds that th

## The Joke A woman poses a philosophical challenge to a man: "Do you know how the world is naturally good all the time?" When he agrees, she flips the classic Problem of Evil on its head. Instead of

## The Joke A student asks a professor whether philosophy is relevant to her. The professor responds by asking what the student studied between classes. The student mentions Bloomberg or business-rel

## The Joke A teenager in a car tells their parent that they cannot pull right up to the school -- they need to be dropped off a few blocks away so the other kids do not see them together. The parent

## The Joke Aliens visit Earth and are puzzled by human civilization. They note that humans have enough food to feed everyone but don't, enough medicine to treat most diseases but can't afford to dis

## The Joke The comic opens with a narrator expressing a worry: that the first aliens to visit Earth will land on a farm. The panel then shows a group of aliens reporting back on what they have obser

## The Joke A mathematician announces that she has discovered a new set of numbers. She explains that primes are sometimes thought of as the "atoms" of numbers -- they are divisible only by themselve

## The Joke The comic begins with the classic anxiety dream that nearly every former student has experienced: showing up to a final exam only to realize you have a test in five minutes and you have n

## The Joke Two prehistoric-looking men are shown. One is tasting something and exclaims that it is the most delicious substance in the universe. The other explains that it is called honey. When the

## The Joke A patient visits a doctor, remarking that going through a terrible divorce is tough but taking comfort in the old saying "time heals all wounds." The doctor responds with surprise: "What?

## The Joke A man in a suit stands at a podium (presumably at a funeral) holding what appears to be a presentation clicker. He announces: "Given that I have lost the ability to either express or expe

## The Joke A woman greets a brain character, explaining that she is "designed to spend your sleeping hours running simulation scenarios your lineage may encounter." She asks the brain what input it

## The Joke The comic opens with what appears to be a heartwarming scene: a father and daughter are playing at the beach. The daughter shouts "Faster Papa, faster!" and the father responds "Ha! Okay,

## The Joke A tip is offered for math students: if you change a logic puzzle so it is easy, no professor will ever have the nerve to guess the right solution. We then see a student labeled as a "lazy

## The Joke A salesman offers a man a device called "Last Rite-ly" — a gadget that implants into your neck and, in the event of death, electrically causes your heart to beat while uploading your soul

## The Joke A man tells a woman that in Korean, the language has seven levels of formality, each with special verb endings. They both laugh and agree they are glad they are not products of such "oute

## The Joke Aliens arrive on Earth announcing they have come to take humanity's planet. A human casually responds "That's fine." The aliens are confused — they expected resistance. When they ask for

## The Joke Cupid draws his bow to shoot a man walking down the street, hoping to make him fall in love. But the arrow misses and instead hits the man's laptop (or phone). Cupid panics — "Wait! Wait!

## The Joke A man asks God why there are multiple universes. God explains his process: he generates options, gauges their qualities, and continues with the ones that seem fine — effectively A/B testi

## The Joke A man declares that he wants a woman who loves him for who he truly is — not his status, not his appearance, not his achievements or intelligence. He wants her to love "the essential me"

## The Joke A person excitedly tells a coin-like character that they have found mathematical proofs that there is no largest number. The coin responds dismissively: "The hell are you talking about? L

## The Joke The comic shows a movie theater from the audience's perspective. On the screen, a pre-show announcement reads: "ANY WORDS YOU SAY OUT LOUD WILL BE CARVED INTO YOUR FACE WITH A FORK. Thank

## The Joke A man with a shocked expression asks, "You're breaking up with me!?" The woman calmly responds, "Sort of. I was randomly assigned to you as part of a sociological experiment. You're a pla

## The Joke In the first panel, an old bearded man (Noah) is frantically talking on the phone, saying he needs to buy up as many flood insurance policies as he can, and he needs them right now. He th

## The Joke An older professor-like figure delivers a lecture in which he attempts to apply rigorous physical reasoning to the miracles of Jesus. He begins by noting that Jesus was buoyant enough to

## The Joke A human has been abducted and brought to the alien planet Zorblax. He fearfully asks the alien why he has been brought there -- to be enslaved, dissected, or eaten. The alien casually say

## The Joke A group of people discuss what makes humans special. They propose various candidates: syntax, culture, tool use, commerce, and war. But each suggestion is shot down because other animals

## The Joke The comic is titled "A Unified Theory of Why People Watch Awful TV." Two men sit on a couch in front of a television. One enthusiastically tells the other: "I promise it is a good show! D

## The Joke A cosmic being visits a "Dimension Store" to buy dimensions for a universe it is building. The salesperson recommends 26 dimensions for the best of all possible universes, and suggests at

## The Joke A man (shown in silhouette) is apparently performing the "helicopter dick" move -- swinging his penis in a circular motion -- presumably as a seductive or comedic gesture. A woman, lookin

## The Joke The comic retells the nursery rhyme "Humpty Dumpty" with a dark twist. The first two panels follow the familiar rhyme: "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall." But i

## The Joke The comic plays on the classic sitcom/movie trope where someone walks in on their partner in bed with another person, and the guilty party blurts out "It's not what it looks like!" In the

## The Joke In the first panel, a bald man with glasses (a classic SMBC scientist/dad archetype) presents a child with a plate of steamed cauliflower, cheerfully explaining that a substance has "soli

## The Joke The comic reimagines the biblical story of the Garden of Eden with the serpent trying to convince Eve to eat the forbidden apple -- but Eve turns out to be a shrewd negotiator. In the fir

## The Joke A man with a mohawk pitches a pop song idea to a woman. He describes it in overwrought, pseudo-intellectual terms: it features a young man and woman who feel shunned by their cultural int

## The Joke In the main panel, Batman tells Robin that he is too old for crime-fighting and that it is time to retire. Robin responds with an enthusiastic motivational speech straight out of a classi

## The Joke In the first panel, a mathematician complains to a colleague that he is tired of being a pure mathematician. He says they just sit around solving endless pointless puzzles, and he wants t

## The Joke The comic shows a classic superhero rescue scenario: an elderly woman has been robbed, and a caped hero (depicted in red, resembling a generic superhero or possibly Jesus based on the cap

## The Joke A man is sitting on a bus and says to God (depicted as a face in the sky), "I'm worried I'm losing my faith." He asks how he can know that God is not just a dream, or whether he is just a