Stories
Explanation
This comic features an alien asking a human to tell stories from Earth, then reacting with increasing discomfort as the human recounts typical human narratives.
The alien initially says humans are "so delicate" and asks for stories. The human obliges, telling several tales that represent common human story archetypes. The stories described include: a person who loved another person but circumstances kept them apart, two groups fighting over a large body of water, and individuals on opposite sides of a conflict who fall in love.
The alien finds each story progressively more disturbing. What humans consider touching, romantic, or dramatically compelling narratives -- star-crossed lovers, territorial wars, forbidden romance across enemy lines -- strike the alien as bizarre and horrifying. The stories that form the bedrock of human literature (Romeo and Juliet-style romances, war epics, reconciliation tales) reveal, from an outside perspective, a species obsessed with conflict, tribalism, and emotional suffering.
The final story involves an old human who was sick, an estranged child who returns to care for them, and a reconciliation -- a heartwarming story by human standards. But the alien's reaction suggests that the very concept of family estrangement followed by deathbed reconciliation is itself deeply weird.
The closing panel has the alien declaring that humans must be kept isolated because they are "1,000% weird." The comic uses the alien perspective as a defamiliarization device, forcing readers to see how strange human storytelling conventions and emotional preoccupations appear from the outside.