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full-moon

2022-05-06 View on smbc-comics.com → 1 revision
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full-moon
Votey panel for full-moon
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Explanation

This comic subverts the werewolf trope by combining it with the very mundane problem of overeating.

In the first panel, a woman asks her friend Hank why he eats five whole pizzas every time there is about to be a full moon. Hank, covered in pizza sauce, defensively replies "None of your business."

The second panel reads "Later, at midnight..." and shows Hank silhouetted against the full moon in a classic werewolf transformation pose. He begins to howl "RAAAARGH! I must feed on the flesh of..." -- but then immediately clutches his stomach and says "...oh. Oh God. Heartburn. Oh God. I'm going back to bed."

The joke is that Hank is indeed a werewolf who transforms at the full moon, but the five pizzas he ate beforehand have given him such terrible heartburn that he cannot fulfill his primal urge to hunt and devour flesh. Instead of a terrifying rampage, his transformation is immediately undermined by indigestion.

The comic plays with the horror genre by showing that even supernatural monsters are not immune to the consequences of gluttony. It also implies that Hank may eat the pizzas precisely because he knows what is coming and is trying to pre-fill himself so he will not attack anyone -- making the heartburn an intentional (if uncomfortable) strategy for managing his lycanthropy.

View History (1) Original Comic