gills
Explanation
This single-panel comic shows two police officers standing on a beach, looking at something off-panel near the water. One officer says, "Christ. Did any kids see it?" The other says, "Why can't they just plug their gills or something? Why they gotta flop up here?"
The caption below reads: "Every few years, a mermaid dies attempting autoerotic asphyxiation."
The joke takes the familiar mythological concept of mermaids -- creatures that are half-human, half-fish -- and applies a grimly realistic police-procedural lens to it. Since mermaids breathe through gills underwater, coming onto land where they can't breathe through gills would be the mermaid equivalent of asphyxiation. The police officers' weary, seen-it-before attitude parodies how real officers might react to an embarrassing death scene. The humor is in the absurd collision of fantasy creatures with mundane, taboo real-world situations, treated with deadpan bureaucratic resignation.