universal-2
Explanation
This comic satirizes the idea that all fiction is essentially fan fiction — or more specifically, that all fiction is Harry Potter fan fiction.
In the first panel, a man sitting at a computer is asked "What're you doing?" He responds: "Taking my life experience and transmuting it into something universal through the medium of storytelling."
In the second panel, his partner objects: "But this is Harry Potter fan fiction." He counters: "Right. I said universal."
The third panel delivers the punchline escalation: "All of fiction that is actually any good is, in a sense, Harry Potter fan fiction." The partner then pleads: "No more true things today, please."
The final panel adds the capper: "It's our generation's Bible — if the Bible was well-written."
The comic satirizes several things at once. First, it mocks the literary pretension of describing creative writing in grand terms ("transmuting life experience into something universal") when the actual output is fan fiction. Second, it plays with the cultural dominance of Harry Potter as a reference point for an entire generation, pushing it to an absurd extreme by claiming all good fiction is essentially Harry Potter fan fiction. The joke about the Bible being less well-written is a characteristically SMBC provocation — simultaneously poking fun at Harry Potter superfans who treat it as scripture, and tweaking religious sensibilities by unfavorably comparing sacred text to a children's book series. The partner's weary "no more true things today, please" is the comic's wink to the audience that none of these claims are actually true — they just have the annoying rhetorical shape of profundity.