2012-05-27
Explanation
This comic takes the classic anti-lawyer joke -- "What do you call a thousand lawyers at the bottom of the sea? A good start!" -- and gives it a literal, absurdist twist. Instead of the expected punchline, the comic depicts an actual underwater city full of lawyers, shown going about their business with dialogue like "Personal injury case in Sector 6.283T" and "I can reach the surface within 2.4 hours." The caption below reads: "What do you call a thousand lawyers at the bottom of the sea? Atlantis II. If you tell anyone, you die."
The joke reimagines the premise as a real scenario in which lawyers have established a secret underwater civilization, a la Atlantis. The menacing "If you tell anyone, you die" adds a conspiratorial element, as though the lawyers' undersea colony is a guarded secret. The humor works on multiple levels: it subverts the expected punchline of a well-known joke, it plays on the stereotype that lawyers are everywhere and will colonize any available space, and the idea of a secret lawyer Atlantis is inherently funny in its absurdity.