pet-peeve
Explanation
The Joke
The comic is titled "Pet Peeve: People who refuse to take credit for their own good work." It shows a well-dressed man with a smug expression saying: "I don't think of myself as a genius. I'm really just a vessel. A simple, homely vessel into which, as it happens, all of the Muses have poured their sweetest honey, year in year out since the moment I was born."
The man claims to be humbly deflecting praise, but his "humble" self-description is actually an elaborate, poetic brag. By calling himself a "vessel" for the Muses' "sweetest honey" that has been flowing since birth, he is essentially saying he was born a genius who has been divinely inspired his entire life. The supposed humility is thinner than tissue paper -- he is taking more credit through false modesty than he would by just saying "yes, I'm very talented."
The Humor
The comedy targets a very specific and recognizable type of false modesty -- the person who frames their self-aggrandizement as humble deference to forces beyond their control. By refusing to call himself a genius and instead describing himself as a lifelong chosen vessel of divine artistic inspiration, the character manages to sound even more arrogant than if he had simply accepted the compliment. The increasingly ornate language ("sweetest honey," "year in year out since the moment I was born") is perfectly calibrated to expose the gap between the surface humility and the underlying narcissism.
The votey panel drives the point home further, with the same character (eyes serenely closed) saying: "I am but a conduit for total fucking brilliance" -- dropping the flowery metaphor while keeping the false-modesty structure, making the arrogance completely undeniable.