What Will Future Archeologists Say?

July 6th, 2026 Barry Posted in Barry's favorites, LGBT cartoons, R. E. Ryan collaborations | No Comments »

This cartoon is by me and R. E. Ryan.  It’s from 2024, but I forgot to post it on leftycartoons until now!

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has six panels.

PANEL 1

A man with a big mustache, wearing jeans and a button-down shirt, has a sneery grin as he points at a woman. The woman, whose back is to us, listens with her hands on her hips. Let’s call the man “MUSTACHE.”

MUSTACHE: In a thousand years, scientists will be able to tell your skeleton was male! HA!

PANEL 2

The same scene, but now the woman’s body language is surprised, and Mustache is grasping at his chest and has an expression of agony.

MUSTACHE: ACK! Heart attack!

PANEL 3

We are viewing Mustache in his open coffin; there’s a casket spray (that’s what the traditional flower arrangements that lie on top of coffins are called, and that’s something I didn’t know until I googled it two minutes ago because I was writing this transcript)  on the coffin. There’s a photo of him when he was alive on a tripod next to the coffin. His eyes are closed and he looks at peace. Ironically, his hands, folded on his chest, are in almost exactly the same position as in panel 2.

PANEL 4

We are looking at a cross-section view of a grave in a graveyard. We can see that a coffin is buried sex feet under. In the background, we can see the skyscrapers of a city.

PANEL 5

We are looking at the same scene, from the same angle, but now a hole has been dug and two sleek white floating robots are lifting the coffin out of the grave. In the background, we can see a sci-fi cityscape, with lots of tiny spaceships in the sky.

PANEL 6

We are in some sort of sci-fi medical research lab. In the background, we can see screens with various graphs and readouts on the wall, including one with a diagram of a skeleton surrounded by labels. One of the robots we saw in panel five is working at a panel of buttons. In the foreground, two scientists with sci-fi looking eyewear are thoughtfully examining a skeleton on an examination table; one of the scientists is scanning the skeleton with a handheld device.

The skeleton is Mustache’s (we can tell because his mustache has somehow survived).

SCIENTIST: The scans are conclusive – this skeleton was an asshat.

What Will Future Archeologists Say? | Barry Deutsch on Patreon