Michel
| Michel |
 Title text: For reasons related to current research projects, SMBC will be slowly switching over to obscure literary references for the foreseeable future. It's been nice knowing you. |
Votey
Explanation
In this comic, two people are discussing Western literature. The first person's perspective is that Western literature has declined from the great Western canon to what it is today. He references such authors as Homer, author of the Iliad and Odyssey, Dante, author of Divine Comedy, and Shakespeare, a famous Elizabethan-era English playwright. In contrast, the first person believes modern interests only extend to "trite observations on cats".
The second person replies with a quote in French. The first person's expression of delight when asking "What does that [mean]" implies he believes the second person agrees, and is contributing a learned reference to Western literature to build off of his point. However, the irony is that the quote is an insignificant thought about its writer's cat; when the second person translates the quote, he proves that modern obsession with cats is in fact a lasting phenomenon and was even a contemporary of the pillars of Western literature.
The French quote is from Michel de Montaigne, a famous philosopher of the French Renaissance. He is perhaps best known for his essay-writing, exemplified by his compilation Essais, from which the quote is sourced.
The second person's exclamation that "It's just cats [all] the way down" is a play on the phrase "Turtles all the way down", which alludes to infinite regress, demonstrated in the comic in the form of humanity's obsession with cats going back centuries.
Transcript
- [Two people with glasses are talking.]
- Person 1: It drives me crazy! There's the entire Western canon - Homer, Dante, Shakespeare! And yet all anyone wants online is trite observations on cats!
- [Closeup on Person 2's face.]
- Person 2: "Quand je me joue à ma chatte, qui sait si elle passe son temps de moi, plus que je ne fais d'elle."
- [Person 1 responds happily.]
- Person 1: What does that-
- Person 2: "When I play with my cat, who knows if she's not passing time with me more than I'm passing time with her." Michel de Fucking Montaigne, Essais, Book 2, 1580
- Person 2 [now yelling]: It's cats! It's just cats alllllllll the way down!
- Person 1 [in background]: NOOOO
Votey Transcript
- [A pencil sketch of Person 2's face.]
- Person 2: Also Chaucer had more anus-kissing than you might expect.
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