2013-09-23
Explanation
This comic depicts a scene between Herman Melville (the author of Moby-Dick) and what appears to be his editor. The editor says: "It'''s uh... a lovely statement, Mr. Melville, but I'''m going to remove the '''like...''' and change the spelling of '''whoa.'''" Melville protests: "What? But that changes the whole meaning!" The caption below reads: "There is wisdom that is woe."
The joke plays on one of the most famous lines from Moby-Dick: "There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness." The comic imagines that Melville originally wrote something more casual and colloquial -- perhaps something like "There is, like, wisdom that is whoa" -- using the filler word "like" and the informal exclamation "whoa" instead of the literary "woe." The editor'''s corrections transformed casual surfer-speak into profound literary prose, and Melville is upset because the original captured a different (and much more laid-back) meaning.
The votey continues the gag with the editor saying "Now, about this '''from hell'''s heart I fuck you up''' line..." and Melville responding "What?" This references another famous Moby-Dick quote ("From hell'''s heart I stab at thee") and imagines that Melville'''s original draft was much more vulgar and colloquial, with the editor cleaning it up into the elegant prose we know today. The overall joke is that great literature might just be the result of aggressive editing of terrible first drafts.