2009-11-10
Explanation
This comic imagines what a horror film would look like from a creationist perspective. In the opening panels, a father is fleeing with his daughter from a menacing figure. When the daughter asks why they are running since the person looks normal, the father replies in terror: "He's an evolutionist!" The family tries to defend themselves, with the father brandishing a knife and shouting "Stay back! I have a knife!" But the evolutionist simply commands the knife to "Evolve!" -- and in a sequence of panels, the father's hand holding the knife visually transforms, as if undergoing rapid evolution. The evolutionist then declares "You've been selected!" as the family screams in horror.
The joke plays on a creationist caricature of evolution, treating the scientific theory as if it were a supernatural power that an "evolutionist" could wield like a horror movie monster. The punchline "You've been selected" is a play on natural selection, recast as something sinister. The caption at the bottom reads: "Ironically, only biologists truly appreciate creationist horror films," suggesting that scientists would find this absurd portrayal of evolution entertaining precisely because it so thoroughly misunderstands how evolution actually works.
The votey (bonus panel) shows a self-deprecating aside, captioned "Zach drawing comics at 3 AM," with a grotesquely drawn version of the artist saying "Nothing I've ever drawn is funny." This is a classic SMBC meta-joke about the cartoonist's late-night creative anxieties.