2013-08-19
Explanation
This comic plays on the classic alien encounter trope. A human woman meets an alien and immediately asks "Oh my God an alien! Are you gonna anal probe me?" -- referencing the well-known pop culture association between alien abductions and anal probing. The alien is offended and confused, asking "What the... why do you people always ask that?"
The conversation then takes a turn. The alien asks why, if humans encountered an advanced civilization visiting Earth, they would assume the aliens would stick something up their rear. The alien ponders this and the human asks "Where's your planet anyway?" The alien considers the question, looks at Earth, and decides to simply "Nuke it from space" -- concluding that a species whose first thought upon meeting aliens is about anal probing is not worth interacting with and should just be destroyed.
The humor works on multiple levels: it satirizes the absurdity of the anal probe trope in alien abduction lore, it shows the alien's reasonable disgust at humanity's fixation on this idea, and it ends with the darkly comic conclusion that humans are so irredeemably weird that the kindest thing to do is just wipe them out. The votey panel shows the alien saying "Hold up... this isn't so bad..." suggesting the alien might be reconsidering the destruction, or perhaps discovering that the probing idea has some merit after all.