2009-12-16
Explanation
This comic offers a darkly humorous reimagining of the fairy tale "Jack and the Beanstalk." The main panel shows a man (Jack) lying dead on the ground with a massive beanstalk growing out of his body in a pool of blood. The caption reads: "In Jack's defense, 'Magic Beans' sounds like an awesome drug."
The joke reinterprets the classic fairy tale through a modern lens. In the original story, Jack trades his family's cow for magic beans, which then grow into a giant beanstalk reaching the sky. Here, Weinersmith suggests that when Jack heard "magic beans," he assumed they were some kind of recreational drug and ingested them. The result is grotesquely literal: the beanstalk grew inside him and burst out of his body. The caption's casual, sympathetic tone ("in Jack's defense") treats his fatal mistake as an understandable misunderstanding, which makes the horror funnier by contrast.
The votey panel shows the giant at the top of the beanstalk looking down and saying "Ooh, free blood!" -- adding another layer to the fairy tale parody. In the original story, the giant famously says "Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman." Here, the giant is delighted to find blood readily available at the base of the beanstalk, turning the fairy tale's threat into something more like opportunistic scavenging.