2012-11-15
Explanation
This comic features a doctor telling a patient he only has a few days to live. The doctor then recommends "a new method of death" involving virtual reality goggles connected to a helicopter with a gun. The goggles let the patient see their own body from the helicopter''s perspective, making the body look foreign -- like a "creepy doppelganger" rather than themselves. The doctor encourages the patient to channel disgust and anger toward the body, urging them to "kill it" since "it''s the one that made you sick." The patient, now viewing themselves in third person, shoots the body with the helicopter''s gun. Afterward, the patient excitedly says "Oh! Oh! I so got you! Oh my God I got you!" and then asks "So I''m not gonna die?" The doctor replies "No, no, no... not for a few days, no."
The comic is a darkly humorous take on the psychology of death and dissociation. The doctor''s scheme exploits the well-known psychological phenomenon that people find it easier to commit violence when they are emotionally detached from the target. By using VR to let the patient see their own body from an external perspective, the body becomes an "other" -- something alien and threatening rather than the self. The patient gets so caught up in the excitement of the video-game-like shooting experience that they momentarily forget they just shot themselves. The final punchline -- "not for a few days" -- is a gut-punch reminder that the patient has not actually changed their fate at all; they have just added a gunshot wound to their terminal diagnosis.
The votey panel shows the patient asking "Could I have some morphine?" and the doctor responding "I don''t believe in euthanasia, sir" -- an ironic and absurd contradiction given that the doctor just helped the patient shoot their own body with a helicopter-mounted gun.