Secondhand Logic
Cartoon by Barry
TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON
PANEL 1
Two men are talking on a sidewalk. One has brown hair and a mustache, and looks smugly confident. The younger man has curly blond hair and wears a T-shirt.
MUSTACHE: I know a question no atheist can answer!
BLOND: What is it? My cousin Edna over there’s an atheist — I’ll try it on her!
PANEL 2
The blond man walks toward a woman sitting on a park bench.
BLOND: Hi Edna! I’ve got a question no atheist can answer!
EDNA: Sounds like fun. Hit me!
PANEL 3
Close-up of the blond man, gesturing enthusiastically.
BLOND: Imagine you’re walking when you notice a watch half-buried in the path.
PANEL 4
A large panel showing the blond man and Edna walking and talking. Behind them is an enormous, partially buried pocket watch. The characters appear several times as their conversation progresses.
BLOND: You’d know there must be a watchmaker, right? It’s too complex to exist unless someone made it.
BLOND: But the universe is much more complex than a watch. So it has to have a creator. Which proves God exists! Checkmate, atheist!
EDNA: I see your point… But if complex things can’t exist without a creator, then who created God?
BLOND: No one “created” God. God just exists.
EDNA: But if God “just exists,” then complex things can exist without an intelligent creator.
PANEL 5
Edna gestures as she talks.
EDNA: Now let me ask you one! What’s the point of “killer questions” to prove God exists?
PANEL 6
A giant hand emerges from the clouds, offering a book to two scientists. The book is entitled “PROOF by Me, God.”
EDNA (off-panel): If God exists, he could easily prove it, right?
PANEL 7
A wide-eyed man talks to a skeptical woman in a park. God, portrayed as a gigantic man with a long white beard, hides behind a tree, giggling.
EDNA (off-panel): But he hasn’t. So either he doesn’t exist, or he wants to remain unproven.
MAN: But he was just here!
GOD: Hee hee.
PANEL 8
Edna continues speaking as she and the blond man walk.
EDNA: So by trying to “prove” God exists, could you be going against God’s wishes?
PANEL 9
The blond man stands still, looking stunned, with one hand against his face, as Edna continues walking.
BLOND: Um…
PANEL 10
The blond man, waving his arms enthusiastically and grinning, has returned to his mustached friend.
MUSTACHE: What did she say?
BLOND: She was totally stumped!
KICKER CAPTION BELOW THE COMIC
Barry the cartoonist, looking very conceited, talks to the reader.
BARRY: People have asked variants of the watch question since Cicero in 45 B.C. But now I’ve drawn a cartoon, so the question is settled forever!
CHICKEN FAT WATCH
Panel 1: A discarded piece of paper on the sidewalk reads “Litter Bugs R Among Us.”
Panel 2: A wanted poster is nailed to a tree. A building in the background is a giant robot. Another building is made of giant Lego blocks.
Panel 3: A building in the background has rows of windows with people whose heads are shaped like Os and Xs, in a tic-tac-toe game formation. Another building has a skier zooming down the sloped roof.
Panel 4: A cave in the background has a mailbox reading “Plato,” and a shadow figure is visible inside, recalling Plato’s allegory of the cave. Two little anthropomorphic rodents wearing fancy Victorian clothes walk together in the foreground. A realistic bird with a Disneyesque cartoon duck head flies overhead.
Panel 5: An evil bunny smoking a cig is on the grass.
Panel 6: The two scientists are drawn with eggs for heads; a caption labels them “egghead scientists.”
Panel 8: One of the trees has an arm sticking up out of the ground instead of a trunk.
Panel 9: A building is topped by a gigantic birthday cake.
Panel 10: A turtle wearing glasses is walking on the sidewalk.
EDNA’S TATTOOS: Over the course of the strip, Edna has a tattoo of a triangle on her left arm, and a tattoo of an oval on her right arm. The oval turns into a stick figure with an oval head, waving at us. Then, looking serious, Oval holds up a sign saying “beware of Triangle Head.” Then we see a triangle-head stick figure holding a gun. Then, as Oval looks the other way, a gun is pointed at the back of Oval’s head. Finally, we see a gravestone with a picture of Oval on it.
BLOND MAN’S T-SHIRT: Over the course of the strip, the blond man’s T-shirt displays a disagreement about burger joints. “Eat at Joe’s”; “Joe’s? Nah Jo’s food is better”; “Jo’s not better you liar!”; “Joe’s a total hack!”; “You take that back!”; “Joe’s burgers taste like dust.”; “Yes, but yummy dust!”