feral
Explanation
This is a dense, multi-layered comic satirizing economics, capitalism, and the concept of a "feral economist." Two characters in a forest encounter what appears to be a wild economist -- an economist who has gone feral and is living in nature.
The feral economist behaves exactly as economic theory would predict a rational agent might: he has restructured his life to maximize utility by "creating a monopoly over fire, calories, and water" and charging a "management fee." The onlookers are horrified but also fascinated, noting that "preferences are preferences" -- the core economic principle of not judging people's choices.
Later panels escalate the absurdity. The economist has somehow set up a situation where basic survival resources are controlled and monetized, even in the wilderness. When someone suggests he give back to society, the economist has a ready economic justification for why that's unnecessary. The final panel shows someone declaring him "happier than any of us," completing the satire.
The comic mocks how economic theory, taken to its logical extreme, can justify almost any behavior -- including antisocial hoarding of resources -- as "rational." It also plays on the idea that an economist removed from civilization would immediately recreate capitalism from scratch, because that's the only framework they understand. The "feral" framing makes it feel like observing a wild animal in its natural habitat, which is itself the joke: pure economic rationality, stripped of social norms, looks feral.