2012-11-20
Explanation
This comic is drawn on graph paper and features anthropomorphized geometric shapes -- specifically triangles -- acting out a dramatic domestic scene. In the first panel, a larger triangle encourages a smaller one with "Push sweetie, push!" as if coaching through childbirth, and we see a tiny baby triangle appear. In the second panel, the family of triangles is together with the new baby. Then the scene takes a dark turn: the large triangle has grown enormous (becoming an obtuse angle), and the other triangle cries "Honey, wait!" In the final panel, the now-huge angle towers over the small triangle, who shouts "You were my best friend!"
The humor operates on a visual math pun. When two triangles "have a baby" (a small triangle emerges), the parent triangle grows its angle wider, eventually becoming an obtuse angle. The joke plays on the idea that as an angle becomes obtuse, it physically changes shape and becomes something different -- stretching apart from its partner. The domestic drama of growing apart is literalized through geometric transformation: as the angle opens wider, it literally moves away from the other shapes.
The votey panel shows someone telling the comic''s creator "You need to get out more," with another person groaning incoherently -- a meta-joke acknowledging that inventing melodramatic soap opera storylines for triangles on graph paper is perhaps a sign of spending too much time alone.