2009-09-19
Explanation
The comic shows two men on their phones -- one sending content, the other receiving it. They appear to be exchanging something illicit. The bottom panel reveals they are standing on either side of a convent called "Our Lady of Grace," meaning the wireless signal is literally passing through the building full of nuns. The caption reads: "Improper use of the Internet #86: Beaming porno through nuns."
The humor is based on a deliberately literal and absurd interpretation of how wireless signals work. While Wi-Fi and cellular signals do indeed pass through buildings (and the people inside them), no one normally thinks of this as the signal traveling "through" the nuns. The comic takes this technically accurate physical fact and frames it as a form of sacrilege -- pornographic data is physically passing through the bodies of women who have devoted their lives to religious purity. It is part of an implied numbered series of "Improper uses of the Internet," suggesting there is a long catalog of such creative misuses.
The votey shows a nun happily reading a magazine called "PlayClergy" with the caption "Little do you know..." This flips the joke by revealing that the nuns have their own form of risque entertainment, undermining the assumption that the nuns are innocent victims of the data passing through their convent.