Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

counsel

2022-11-29 View on smbc-comics.com → 1 revision
counsel
Votey panel for counsel
This explanation is incomplete or may contain errors. It was generated by AI and has not yet been reviewed by a human editor.

Explanation

This comic is set in what appears to be a demonic or hellish counsel/parliament. A speaker addresses the assembled demons about various bureaucratic or procedural matters, and the joke plays on the idea that Hell is run like a dysfunctional organization complete with meetings, committees, and all the tedious administrative overhead that comes with any large institution.

The humor derives from the long-running comedic tradition of depicting Hell not as a place of fire and torment, but as the ultimate bureaucracy. The demons sit through interminable meetings and deal with organizational nonsense, suggesting that perhaps the real punishment in Hell is having to endure endless committee proceedings. The comic satirizes corporate and governmental meetings by implying that even the underworld cannot escape the soul-crushing monotony of institutional process.

The final panels show various characters reacting to or commenting on the proceedings, reinforcing the absurdity of demonic entities being bogged down in the same petty organizational dynamics that plague mortal institutions.

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