Wed Oct 29, 2008 — by Chuck Rozakis

Webcomics You Should Be Reading: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

I recommended this comic to a friend of mine. She wrote back that her office's content filter blocked it as "tasteless and offensive."

This is an entirely accurate statement about Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. What they fail to mention, however, is that it's also hilarious.

SMBC is a daily single-panel comic, in the vein of an R-rated The Far Side. The humor is primarily based on taking the punchline in a completely different direction than expected. It's not suitable for kids. (Or adults who want any claim to maturity, for that matter.) It's also not suitable for people who are sensitive about sex, death, religion, fetishes, cheesecake, herpes, dolphins, politics, or your mom.

There's a SMBC store, though it's currently closed for renovations and expected to reopen in November.

Notable moments:

•  The Socratic Method
• Space Ace
• The bad pun isn't the punchline.
•  "Agarn, I don't know why everyone says you're so dumb."
• Superdickery
• Life goals
• Suspiciously specific disclaimers
• Funnier than All-Star Batman and Robin (maybe not by much)

Drama: Nope. Black comedy, maybe. Not the slightest hint of drama.

Humor: Imagine Gary Larson's sense of humor melded with Kevin Smith's potty mouth and you'll pretty much have Zach Weiner. As noted, what lesser cartoonists would use as the entire joke, he uses as a set-up to something unexpected and much more disturbing.

Continuity: None. There's a "random" strip button on the site, and it's one of the few comics where that's actually a worthwhile idea.

Art: Reasonable; it gets the job done. All the people look pretty much alike, and Weiner probably won't be winning any awards, but he's conscious enough of his own skill that you never find yourself missing a joke because you can't figure out what that blue thing is.

Archive: Six years, about 1325 single-panel or two-panel strips. (Don't let that scare you, though: There is absolutely no need for an archive trawl. You can read as many or as few strips as you want.)

Updates: Daily, consistently.

Risk/Reward: Reading too many of these in a row may make you realize you're a horrible person. (There's no ongoing storyline, so there's no risk should the comic suddenly cut off.)
 

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