2011-09-07
Explanation
The comic shows a Cthulhu-like creature -- an octopus or squid-headed being -- dressed as a Christian priest, wearing a clerical collar and sitting in a chair reading a Bible (marked with a cross on the cover). A cross hangs on the wall behind him.
The humor comes from the incongruity of combining H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos with Christianity. In Lovecraft's fiction, Cthulhu is a cosmic horror entity worshipped by mad cultists, representing the terrifying indifference of the universe. Placing such a creature in the role of a mild-mannered clergyman reading scripture is absurd -- it is the eldritch equivalent of a monster becoming domesticated. The joke may also play on the idea that from an outsider's perspective, all religious devotion might look equally strange, or that even an ancient cosmic horror might find comfort in religion.