a-bar-joke
Explanation
The Joke
The comic sets up the classic "walks into a bar" joke format: an American, an Englishman, and an Irishman enter a bar. However, instead of the usual punchline structure, the joke takes a dark turn. Concerned that they are the setup to a joke and will "become wary," they decide that bar jokes "often end in humiliation or suffering" and each man improvises a weapon. Seeing each other's weapons, each elects to strike first.
The American whips out a revolver but, with dark comedic irony, it is so quiet "as the watch was flop and shiver and die." The Englishman and Irishman are left standing with "particularly fine moustaches." Then the final twist: a priest and a rabbi walk in, and one says "he walked into a bar," turning the entire violent scenario back into the most basic version of the bar joke -- someone literally walking into (colliding with) a bar.
The Humor
The comic is a meta-joke that deconstructs the "walks into a bar" format itself. The characters are genre-savvy -- they know they are inside a joke and try to resist their fate, leading to an absurd escalation of violence. The punchline works because after all the subversion and carnage, the comic circles back to the simplest, most groan-worthy version of the bar joke: a man physically walking into a bar (the object). It is a commentary on how joke formats are inescapable, and the characters' attempts to fight the narrative only make the eventual punchline land harder. The promotional tag at the bottom ("Soonish") indicates this was part of a series of comics promoting Zach and Kelly Weinersmith's book "Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That'll Improve and/or Ruin Everything."
References
This comic is a meta-commentary on the "An X, a Y, and a Z walk into a bar" joke format, one of the most enduring structures in Western humor. The "Soonish" branding refers to the 2017 book by Zach Weinersmith and Kelly Weinersmith about emerging technologies.