Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

## The Joke A mother asks her teenage daughter Jenny why she is "worrying all the time." Jenny, who is fifteen, responds that her life is just beginning. The mother then offers pessimistic "wisdom":

## The Joke A couple is leaving a movie theater. One person (with a beard) enthusiastically says the movie about Thor was so cool that he wants to read "real Norse mythology." His partner agrees and

## The Joke Death (personified as a robed figure with a scythe) is tired of being feared and hated. Death points out that without death, life would have no urgency, no stakes, and no meaning. Every e

## The Joke A woman discovers what she initially thinks is a "foolish" old romance novel in her closet. She then begins treating it like an archaeological artifact, analyzing the "flowery language" a

## The Joke Two surgeons are performing an operation. One exclaims in shock: "My God... it only looks human." The other responds: "The exterior is pure chitin." The caption reads: "What's Waldo was

## The Joke Three priests sit around a table looking deeply troubled. One of them says: "If God is omniscient and omnipotent... well... how could He let this happen?" The caption below reads: "We lo

## The Joke Two men in a spy/action movie planning scene discuss how to infiltrate Pyongyang without being detected. Before they can finish, a woman interrupts, introducing herself as "the superfluou

## The Joke A job interviewer asks a candidate the classic interview question: "What is your greatest weakness?" The man confidently responds, "I don't have any! I'm great at everything!" In the fin

## The Joke The comic presents a speculative timeline of what would happen if telepathy machines were invented. **First generation:** Telepathic users are a mess. A married couple of 27 years is sho

## The Joke The comic presents a cut-out paper craft for "Make Your Own Unsexy Dice" -- a pair of dice designed to kill the mood instead of enhance it, parodying novelty "sexy dice" products. **Die

## The Joke A girl is standing at a microphone on stage, apparently participating in a spelling bee. She is given the word "zephyr." Instead of spelling it correctly, she spells out "F-U-C-K-I-N-G-P-

## The Joke Aliens arrive on Earth and demand to meet "the wisest species on Earth." A human woman assumes they mean humans, but the aliens correct her -- they consider humans the *worst* species, th

## The Joke The Joker confronts Batman, noting that they have been fighting for six straight hours and asking how Batman has never stopped to urinate. Batman calmly explains that his urethra is cathe

## The Joke A woman asks a man for money to buy tokens to get tickets to trade for a fun-size chocolate bar (describing the typical arcade/carnival redemption game process). The man points out that w

## The Joke A person challenges scientists by saying, "You scientists think you're so great! But can you draw a beautiful rose? Sing a sublime melody? Tell a joke that makes the world smile? Dance th

## The Joke The title reads "Divorce Strategy: Make the Most of Your Custody Time." A mother is talking to her child and asks, "So, has Daddy shown you his real face yet?" The child asks, "What face?

## The Joke A group of people who appear to be conjoined or stacked together approach a woman and say, "Hey, I hope this doesn't seem weird, but I and my siblings have aggregated into a single biolog

## The Joke A futurist breathlessly describes the technological singularity — the hypothetical moment when artificial intelligence surpasses human intelligence and accelerates beyond our comprehensio

## The Joke The comic presents a lengthy scenario in which a masked figure introduces himself as a representative of the "Conditions of Conditions Department" and explains a series of increasingly co

## The Joke A woman at a bar tells a man, "I'm probably not your type, but I feel I should warn you in case anything happens tonight. I have this sexual dysfunction warning: I'm just REALLY great at

## The Joke A mother is tucking her child into bed, and the child asks her to check for monsters. The mother says it is just her imagination and tells the child to go back to sleep after checking und

## The Joke A man offers to let another person try a machine that "artificially makes you experience an existential crisis." The customer panics: "AAAH! But... if I can have such a personal experienc

## The Joke One character excitedly describes a book to another: "It's the 21st century, but with computers and airships!" The other person responds, "Weeeeird!" Below the panel is the caption: "Fun

## The Joke A man recites the proverb "They say people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones." He then offers his own logical extension: "It follows: that people in durable houses SHOULD throw stone

## The Joke A university administrator gives a commencement speech in which she openly admits that the point of a commencement speech is not to inspire graduates, but to show off how much money the u

## The Joke In the top panel, a couple is in bed and the man is describing sex in the driest, most clinical terms possible: "Let's have sex slowly and haltingly, and only after getting permission fro

## The Joke A child stands at a presidential podium flanked by Secret Service agents, declaring: "From now on, all army guys have to use ninja stars for fighting. Only ninja stars. Oh, or double-swor

## The Joke Death appears before a man named Frank, but Frank says "I'm not dying!" Death sighs, "Ugh, this conversation again." Death explains that Frank is always dying in small ways: when he was 1

## The Joke The comic is a simple graph with two axes. The Y-axis is labeled "Patheticness of Existence" and the X-axis is labeled "Size of Screen on Which You Are Currently Viewing Porno." The curve

## The Joke A child angrily confronts his father: "Why'd you do it, Dad? Why'd you make me lose at science fair?" The father protests "I didn't!" The son reminds him of various excuses: "Remember whe

## The Joke A man named Ahab checks into a holodeck-like simulation facility. The attendant notes he only ordered three minutes in the holorooms. Ahab confirms: "Shan't be but three minutes." He ente

## The Joke God stands dramatically before Moses, declaring "Moses! It is time to part the Red Sea!" Moses begins the miracle, but a bystander (depicted as a glowing figure, possibly an angel or advi

## The Joke A man cheerfully asks his kids, "Hey kids! You wanna play monopsony?" The kids respond, "You mean Monopoly?" He corrects them: "Nope! Monopoly is when one firm is the only seller of somet

## The Joke A child asks "Mom, where do babies come from?" The mother answers, "The stork." The child then asks, "Where do baby storks come from?" The mother answers, "Humanity." She explains that lo

## The Joke A man in a suit and sunglasses approaches another man, telling him to "come with me" because "it's about the universe." He reveals that interdimensional travel is now possible and that ot

## The Joke A man on a park bench invites a passerby into a conversation about logic. He explains "affirming the consequent" -- a logical fallacy where you assume that because "if A then B" is true,

## The Joke A man stands in lingerie beside a bed where a woman sits reading a book. He says: "Sorry. But, according to the efficient market hypothesis, if sex with you were a good idea, I would've d

## The Joke The comic retells the nursery rhyme "Humpty Dumpty" using physics terminology. Each verse of the original rhyme is paired with a physics-based restatement: - "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall

## The Joke A man explains his name: "I am named Long-Feet because when I turned five, an old man remarked on the size of my feet." A woman explains hers: "She is Moon-Hair, for when she was five, th

## The Joke The comic is titled "Science Tip" and advises: "Make a paper sound better by referencing much older work." Two examples are shown side by side. The "Boring Paper" abstract reads: "We pre

## The Joke This is a long-form comic about a focus group being used to create a newspaper comic strip. A media executive gathers a diverse panel to help design a comic that will appeal to the broade

## The Joke A couple is shopping in a toy aisle. The father says he doesn't want their daughter Susie to have a toy from this aisle because they are "way too adult." The punchline reveals that the "a

## The Joke A woman with glasses tells another person: "Sorry, I own the phrase 'IP law is no longer serving its intended purpose.' You owe me $10,000." ## The Humor This is a brilliantly self-refe

## The Joke The comic begins with a child telling adults the classic belief: "Every time a child says 'I don't believe in fairies,' there's a little fairy somewhere that falls down dead." An adult re

## The Joke The comic presents two graphs. The first shows "Willingness to Give Up Personal Privacy" increasing exponentially with "Awesomeness of Technology." The second shows "Awesomeness of Techno

## The Joke A woman gives a lecture explaining that if a microorganism is transmitted sexually, it does best with a sexually active host. Therefore, the microorganism"s genes would have evolved to ma

## The Joke A man in bed says to a woman, "Hey baby, wanna do a little horizontal gene transfer?" The woman responds, "But... aren"t horizontal gene transfers between animals usually mediated by viru

## The Joke A man in what appears to be an antique shop or museum tells a child, "Hey kid, you wanna buy the hat Lincoln wore at the Battle of Fort Dearborn?" The child enthusiastically agrees, sayin

## The Joke A man proposes a "Bayesian drinking game" to his friends: you start with a theory of how much you should drink, then you drink that much, then you update your theory. After having three d

## The Joke A long-form comic featuring what appears to be characters resembling Dr. Seuss-style creatures debating whether one of them would eat green eggs and ham in increasingly elaborate scenario