2011-11-10
Explanation
This comic reimagines the Garden of Eden story with a modern, slacker teenager as Adam. A shadowy serpent-like figure (the Devil) approaches a young man sitting in a chair playing video games and attempts to tempt him, just as the serpent tempted Eve in Genesis. The Devil points out that the boy has no notion of death or struggle, has never had to work the earth for food or build shelter, and has no awareness of his own nakedness -- all parallels to the prelapsarian state in Eden.
The Devil then offers knowledge and power, echoing the forbidden fruit. But each temptation falls flat against modern teenage apathy. "I could give you knowledge of many things" is met with "Thumbs down. Homework sucks." The promise of power "as powerful as God" is deflected with "My dad has way more power than me and he'''s hated his job for 25 years." When the Devil offers to take him to a magical tree whose fruit will enlighten him, the kid responds, "No thanks, dude. I'''m already presently baked" -- a marijuana joke that reinterprets the "tree of knowledge" as a different kind of "tree."
The final panel delivers the punchline: "You made Earth as it is in Heaven so slowly they didn'''t notice" followed by God slamming his fist with a triumphant "BAM!" The implication is that God deliberately made modern life so comfortable and complacent that humanity is essentially already in paradise, making the Devil'''s temptations irrelevant. The votey shows a Bible page reading "And so saying, the Lord did a victory dance," capping off the joke.