2012-04-28
Explanation
This comic takes the familiar human practice of giving flowers and reframes it from an alien anthropological perspective, making the mundane seem bizarre and violent. The aliens describe humans as considering "vegetable life to be their most bitter enemy," noting that they "cut off plant reproductive organs as mating gifts." Each subsequent panel escalates the absurdity: females place severed plant genitals in water "to show off the male'''s might as long as possible," women "adorn their bodies with the mutilated organs," an entire industry breeds "grotesquely well-endowed plants," wedding ceremonies involve covering the area in plant genitals and throwing bunches of them, and men commemorate anniversaries "with ever larger severed genitalia."
The comic continues through the full human life cycle: after reproductive age, females carry luggage decorated with plant genital images (floral-print bags), and when humans die, they are "buried under a mound of vegetal genitalia heaped on a box of plant flesh" -- a perfectly accurate but horrifying description of a funeral with flowers on a wooden coffin. The final panel has the aliens asking "What are hippies?" and answering "The most violent humans in history" -- since hippies, with their flower-power aesthetic, are the humans most obsessed with these "severed plant genitals."
The humor works through defamiliarization: every statement the aliens make is technically accurate, but by stripping away cultural context and using clinical or violent language, Weinersmith makes ordinary flower-giving sound like a gruesome ritual. The votey extends the alien conversation, asking "What are vegans?" with the answer "Mono-maniacs" -- suggesting that from this alien perspective, people who exclusively consume plants are single-mindedly devoted to destroying vegetable life.