pocket-2
Explanation
The Joke
The comic is set in a medieval apothecary shop. A customer complains: "Thy tincture of virgin's hair goes for thrice ye price! And ye price hath trebled since Martinmas last!" The apothecary responds: "Zounds! 'Tis no fault of mine, but ye cost of production." The caption below reveals: "It later turned out that Dederic was in the pocket of Big Apothecary."
The joke transplants modern corporate and political corruption into a medieval setting. The customer is complaining about price gouging on a dubious medicinal product (tincture of virgin's hair), and the apothecary offers the classic corporate defense of blaming production costs. The caption then reveals the apothecary was a paid shill for "Big Apothecary" -- a medieval version of the modern concept of "Big Pharma" or any "Big [Industry]" lobbying group.
The Humor
The comedy works by creating an anachronistic collision between medieval language and settings with modern concepts of corporate lobbying and regulatory capture. The phrase "Big Apothecary" is inherently funny because it applies the contemporary "Big [X]" naming convention -- used for powerful industries like Big Pharma, Big Oil, or Big Tech -- to a tiny medieval shop selling snake oil remedies. The implication that the same dynamics of corruption, price fixing, and industry capture existed in medieval times (complete with the same excuses) is both absurd and darkly plausible.