2011-04-06
Explanation
The comic presents two versions of the same scenario: a child comes home and tells their mother that friends at school called them ugly. In the first panel, labeled "What Usually Happens," the mother gives the standard reassuring response: "Oh, sweetie, no. You're beautiful." This is the typical parental instinct to comfort and protect a child's feelings.
In the second panel, labeled "What Would Be Better," the mother instead responds with "Your friends are assholes." The humor comes from the unexpected bluntness, but the comic is also making a genuine point: rather than offering a possibly dishonest reassurance about the child's appearance (which the child may not believe anyway), it might be more helpful to redirect the issue -- the problem is not with the child's looks but with the cruelty of the people making the comments. It shifts the framing from "you need to feel better about yourself" to "they were wrong to treat you that way.