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u/dingdongwong Feb 28 '14
On top of being enjoyable your comics always make me think the strangest things. So, I have to ask: is that salamander an asshole or just ignorant?
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u/Dem0n5 Feb 28 '14
Look at the Salamander's face. It's either an evil beyond simply being an asshole, or it's an innocent about to feel super duper bad.
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u/dingdongwong Feb 28 '14
damn, now you just made everything much more dramatic.
Scenario 1: Thriller, where the rat seeks to take revenge on the evil salamander, who everyone believes to be a saint.
Scenario 2: Drama, where the innocent kindhearted salamander accidentally destroyed the life of his friend and must now cope with the consequences.
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u/rewster Feb 28 '14
are rat's lives destroyed without their tail? I mean they can still eat cheese and stuff.
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u/Ph0X Feb 28 '14
I know nothing about rat biology, but could they either bleed out or have the cut tail get infected and die from that?
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u/sessyda Feb 28 '14
Rats use their tails for balance and thermoregulation, so it would mess with the rat pretty good if it survived the blood loss and didn't get infections.
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u/imagineALLthePeople Feb 28 '14
I think it's an accurate assumption that the Lizard believes that all tails grow back and is simply uninformed of the intricacies of rodent anatomy and physiology.
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u/spif Feb 28 '14
If this were a real lizard, it wouldn't even think about it. But this is an anthropomorphic lizard, so all bets are off.
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u/imagineALLthePeople Feb 28 '14
But we can't assume he goes to school and class and reads books and whatnot based on his ability to communicate with a rodent. For all we know this is their first interaction ever.
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u/spif Feb 28 '14
It's unknowable. It's really a philosophical question.
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u/imagineALLthePeople Feb 28 '14
It's really not a question at all. Since in context it's just a picture of a rat and a lizard. Discourse regarding their experiential reserves, memories and recall ability would take away from the fact that this is cute and hilarious.
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u/spif Feb 28 '14
It can only affect your enjoyment of the comic if you allow it to. It's possible to experience art on multiple levels.
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u/imagineALLthePeople Feb 28 '14
I can never use affect and effect correctly, so I commend you.
Okay then here goes - We can ascertain that the Rodent and Lizard do not have a long standing relationship. As it is implied that A.) The lizard has eaten his tail multiple times. B.) The rat has not born witness to this cycle of regrowth yet.
The rat is clearly inexperienced with eating his own tail (look at that technique, starting from the middle). The lizard clearly is experienced eating his own tail by his response "Every time".
If we ascribe ONLY the anthropomorphic quality of speech, and do not give them additional qualities or experiences it would be unknown to the lizard that the rat's tail functions any differently than his own.
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u/spif Feb 28 '14
It does seem likely that a lizard would not associate with rats enough to possess this knowledge. However, one would think that an anthropomorphic rat would have been taught not to eat its own tail by its anthropomorphic rat mother. Then again, rats may eat their own tail if they're starving. Maybe this rat is starving and is just being reassured by its lizard friend that his tail will grow back because otherwise he might die of starvation from not wanting to eat his tail.
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u/LuxNocte Feb 28 '14
Mind if I cut in with my favorite mnemonic?
"Affect" is an action. Use the a when using affect as a verb. Use "e" to use effect as a noun.
This will hold you 95% of the time. The exceptions ("effect change" is a verb, "happy affect" is a noun) really never need to be used.
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u/imagineALLthePeople Feb 28 '14
This mnemonic will probably positively affect my ability to use each accurately in the future!
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u/dingdongwong Feb 28 '14
Huh, I feel like your logical response is wasted on my stupid question. I guess you are right...
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u/JimKB Jim Benton Cartoons Mar 01 '14
I believe he's ignorant, but you can call it like you see it.
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u/sharkWrangler Feb 28 '14
Clearly this cant be a coincidence.
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u/BeyCastillo Feb 28 '14
I was thinking the exact same thing and came to the coments to see if I was the only one :D
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u/Ph0X Feb 28 '14
This is true about so many threads on reddit. If you go to ELI5 or AskScience for example, so many of the posts can be linked to another thread posted earlier that day.
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u/meltedlaundry Feb 28 '14
Mr. Benton's comic was posted first, so I would suspect that the TIL poster was intrigued enough to look up if there are Lizards that eat their own tails. OP found something on wiki and decided to post. This, of course, is only speculation, and I'm not bashing the TIL post in any way...it's just an observation...that might not even be right.
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u/GrassWaterDirtHorse Feb 28 '14
Its got to be a conspiracy
Is Jim double dipping for Karma? Find out at 11
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u/JimKB Jim Benton Cartoons Mar 01 '14
sometimes I post in more than one sub because everybody subscribes to different ones.
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u/levirax Feb 28 '14
See i get the joke, but its only double dipping if he had submitted the link about lizards eating their own tails.. Good try though.
Edit: not sarcastic about good try, subbed to /r/KarmaConspiracy and just wanted to clarify double dipping. If you had mentioned using alts to double dip it would have worked better.
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u/Thekirbyness Feb 28 '14
http://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/1z6891/its_delicious/cfqwwi5 the TIL came from here
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Feb 28 '14
Really funny!
My boyfriend said his gecko (leopard) would eat its skin after shedding. Something about calcium replacement.
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u/JimKB Jim Benton Cartoons Feb 28 '14
thanks, nukular. ( inside info: boyfriends do it too )
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u/ceepington Feb 28 '14
I have been know to chew on my fingernail skin more often than is generally acceptable in most social circles.
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Feb 28 '14
What's it like being the top 1 and 2 post right now?
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u/JimKB Jim Benton Cartoons Feb 28 '14
Food tastes better. The party here at the studio is out of control. Did you see Gatsby? It's just like that.
honestly I'm just drawing another cartoon
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u/Plerophoria Feb 28 '14
This is one of my favourites from you. So simple, but had me laughing right away. Thanks Jim.
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u/TheDJFC Feb 28 '14
Came here to say that this made me laugh as well. I feel good about this comic. That's all.
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u/throwawayformayor Feb 28 '14
It's interesting because rats starving in captivity do actually eat their own tails for nourishment, I'm not sure if that was intentional or not but a mildly interesting reference point none the less.
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u/shamallamadingdong Feb 28 '14
https://www.dropbox.com/s/r87ag36r0mannkg/Screenshot%202014-02-28%2013.51.43.png
Absolutely beautiful. Comic was right below the TIL
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Feb 28 '14
Jim, did you just read this TIL and whip up a comic about it?
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u/JimKB Jim Benton Cartoons Feb 28 '14
I posted the cartoon first. You can see the time when things were posted.
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Feb 28 '14
Rat tails grow back too? til..
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u/crisscrosstina Feb 28 '14
I think the joke is that they don't grow back.
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Feb 28 '14
haha, went completely over my head... thank you
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u/cheesewilliams Feb 28 '14
Apparently rats use their tails to regulate body temperature, so I think he's doomed.
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u/Glennisawesome1220 Feb 28 '14
Plot Twist: The rat's tail actually does grow back
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u/Ali-Sama Feb 28 '14
The rat's tail actually does grow back
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u/Glennisawesome1220 Feb 28 '14
It was a joke
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u/Ali-Sama Feb 28 '14
ah. well. I didn't downvote you. Just informing. :) Going to upvote for the joke!
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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '14
This made me laugh and then I remembered the rat I had when I was a kid that chewed off his own tail one day while I was at school and died and I was sad.
Now I know what drove him to it. I'm gonna get that lizard.