irony
Explanation
This comic is built around a long-game wordplay on the concept of "irony."
In the first panel, an old man announces: "I'm changing my name to Irony." His wife asks: "Why?" He explains: "So if I die before you can shout 'Irony is dead!' and I'll be funny which will cheer you up."
The second panel jumps to "Years Later." A doctor tells the wife: "I'm afraid the surgery failed. He didn't make it." The wife dutifully shouts: "Irony is dead! Irony is dead!" The doctor responds: "I am not amused. Bad joke." The wife says something about him not understanding.
In the final panel, the doctor says: "How ironic." The wife responds: "Please go back to dying."
The comic operates on multiple layers of irony. The man's plan was to make his own death funny by having his wife announce "Irony is dead!" -- a statement that sounds like a literary or cultural commentary rather than a literal death announcement. But the plan fails because the doctor doesn't find it funny, which itself creates actual irony: the joke about irony being dead falls flat, demonstrating that irony is very much alive. Then the doctor uses the word "ironic" to describe the situation, further proving that irony isn't dead at all -- which is itself ironic given the man's name.
The comic is a recursive joke about irony: the attempt to kill irony (by naming oneself Irony and dying) only generates more irony, proving that irony is unkillable. It also touches on the common cultural complaint that "irony is dead" -- a refrain often heard after absurd real-world events -- by literalizing it as an actual death.