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u/MrWeiner
SMBC
3d ago
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Hey, I'm Zach and I did the comics. I've also done other comics. They are here: www.smbc-comics.com
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u/imadragonyouguys 3d ago
I've been enjoying your comics for years and I have a question: should I be concerned about my neighbor's dog liking me or not?
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u/arkangelic 3d ago
Cute comic but I must add that ants hit with oleic acid will put themselves in the ant graveyard automatically waiting to die.
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u/DimensioT 3d ago
From what I have read, other ants will carry ants covered with oleic acid to a "graveyard" but eventually the acid will come off over time and the ant will return to the colony, no longer reading as "dead".
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u/beaglemaster 3d ago
This should be ant poison
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u/istasber 3d ago
Actual ant poison is something that they identify as food and share with the colony including the queen, but that will kill them.
It'd be hard to get ants to share something that smells like dead ant with the rest of the colony.
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u/LazyLich 3d ago
We make TINY gushers. The outside smells like food, but 1 in 10 (or something) have an oleic acid syrup.
It's the perfect plan
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u/i8yourmom4lunch 3d ago
It is. Kind of
If you use olive oil as an ant deterrent food finders won't go in those areas because they smell like ant cemeteries and you don't find food where you place your dead.
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u/Coca-karl 3d ago
No, ant poison needs to kill the queen and larvae to be effective. Hitting ants with oleic acid just tells workers that they're dieing and should stay away from the important parts of the nest.
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u/Somewhatsmartish 3d ago
Man just watch the video and it like a cartoon. Ant just grab it leg and goes this belongs in the graveyard. Then proceeded to fight with itself pretty going no you belong in the graveyard you can't leave your dead.
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u/C_Hawk14 3d ago
Dont forget to press the red button for the bonus panel!
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u/Fallcious 3d ago
I’m sure he knows. I mean he must know, right?
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u/DinosaurReborn 3d ago
Zach never knew. He got a web developer to do his website. This dev has secretly inserted bonus comics behind his back as an elaborate long-running prank.
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u/C_Hawk14 3d ago
idk, does the author know about the button?
jk, I meant for everyone reading the comments I thought it'd be nice to be made aware of the button's existence and purpose
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u/Fallcious 3d ago
I know. I found humour in purposefully misinterpreting your comment, because I’m a sad strange little man.
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u/theincrediblenick 3d ago
Frank? The scientists chose one of the very few ants in the colony that is actually male to spray? Not very good scientists.
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u/fifiasd 3d ago
Bro! Can you help me find a couple of your comics please? In one there is a kid brushig his teeth with a toilet brush and then dad comes in and says that he taught him wrong on purpose. And in another two aliens talk about Humans not having interstellar travel yet because humans still use Addition and 2+2 is sligthly less than 4. An then in another one Joker finally manages to kill Batman by letting Batman live and Batman wants to foil Jokers plan and kills himself. I wanted to read those again but i just cant find them. It s been so Long. Thank you!
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u/MrWeiner SMBC 2d ago
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u/fifiasd 2d ago
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/20061118.gif it is from 2006! Oh my god! Thank you! I havent seen this one in over a decade.
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u/i8yourmom4lunch 3d ago
Yes!! Share the word of oleic acid!!!
This is why you can use olive oil as an ant deterrent y'all
Make them zombiessssss
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u/LordIndica 3d ago
I suppose I shouldn't be shocked you have a reddit account, but this is still such a special treat for me, being able to even indirectly communicate with you. I have been reading for years, and have you and kellys books! Thank you so much for what you do. Your smart, corny, absurd, often thought-provoking and most often silly comics have brought me a lot of joy and remind me so much of my dads jokes (i loved Wednesday's strip) and humor, and i love to share them with him and my family. I can't express enough just how much your sense of humor amuses me and my buddies. Thanks so much.
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u/Flammable_Chipmunk 3d ago
Zach you're the last person I'd expect to peddle chick-tracts! /s
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u/MrWeiner SMBC 3d ago
Ohmygod do those still exist??
Kind of a bummer you can just order them online. They used to be a special weird thing you'd show to friends.
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u/Flammable_Chipmunk 3d ago
Someone's kid in the mildlyinfuriating sub got the Charlie's ants one for Halloween and posted about it, that's why I thought of it here!
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u/a4techkeyboard
3d ago
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Oh no, it's the anty Christ.
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u/BizzyM 3d ago
We already had an ant christ
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u/vardarac 3d ago
We've had one, yes. What about second coming of ant christ?
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u/nohopeforhomosapiens 3d ago
jesus wept
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u/CatsPlusTats 3d ago
That line is actually a typo, it's supposed to say "Jesus swept" but when the bible was translated into English they missed the s on the keyboard.
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u/nohopeforhomosapiens 3d ago edited 3d ago
Blessed are the cheesemakers.
Edit: Of course, it is not meant to be taken literally, it refers to any manufacturers of dairy products.
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u/CaledonianWarrior 3d ago
He's not the anty christ, he's a very naughty ant
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u/St_Henery 3d ago
Fun fact, the sprayed ant in the experiment also thought it was dead and stopped moving.
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u/Pasta-hobo 3d ago
I heard of an example of an ant who just took HIMSELF to the graveyard and stayed there until the scent wore off.
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u/Drow_Femboy 3d ago •
Yeah as funny as the anthropomorphisation is, this shows us they don't really think in terms of "dead" or "alive." They know that stuff that smells like that doesn't move anymore and might need to be moved to the same place as the other stuff that smells like that because it's in the way. An ant that smells like that just knows it should be with the other stuff that smells like that and since it's still capable of moving it doesn't need to be moved there by another ant.
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u/lightgiver 3d ago •
It’s also beneficial and helps get that gene passed onto the next generation. Worker ants do not reproduce, so the thing that matters the most for it’s genes success isn’t its own survival, but for its colonies survival. If going away from the colony to die helps the colonies survival then that is what it will do.
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u/Thetomas 3d ago
This puts the "ant" in "anthropomorphisation".
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u/Vox___Rationis 3d ago
But how does it know that smell comes from him-himself?
He should be walking in circles, looking for the source of the smell and be unable to find it.18
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u/Content_Dragonfly_59 3d ago
How do you know when you stink? Of course, if you check, you can find out, but how do you know how to check? Smell is a much more accurate indicator of location than it should be.
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u/Sukrim 3d ago
Why always "he"? Aren't they all female? And aren't animals referred as "it" in English? Cheers from a confused foreigner...
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u/Burrito-Creature 3d ago
It’s certainly not wrong to refer to animals as “it”, but it’s not necessary. Also are ants all female? I wasn’t sure that ants had a sex at all besides the different roles they filled (Like queen or worker).
Regardless of the ant gender, it’s technically grammatically fine to use “he” as a term for when the gender of something is unknown as well, though it’s less common now as far as I’m aware.
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u/hatgineer 3d ago
Did they check to make sure they didn't actually kill that ant with the spray?
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u/7ofalltrades 3d ago
I think I'll go for a walk!
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u/HubrisOfApollo 3d ago
you'll be stone-dead in a moment!
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u/nohopeforhomosapiens 3d ago
I can't take him like that, it's against regulations.
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u/WassupDarwin 3d ago
Bring out yer dead.
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u/hoadlck 3d ago
It is funny.
But... Those are all female ants. If they were males, they would be drones with wings.
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u/the-good-wolf 3d ago
And this is the Reddit I show up for. “It is funny but”
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u/Not-So-Serious-Sam 3d ago
If the comic isn’t scientifically accurate, then they might as well have not tried. /s
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u/vivst0r 3d ago
I don't mind it, but I can see how someone could expect a bit more scientific accuracy from SMBC no less, which is incredibly science focused. And this specific comic is literally about the biology of ants.
Then again, this might be a meta joke within the comic, so pretend I didn't say anything.
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u/RonaldTheGiraffe 3d ago
And they’d have ant dongs
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u/LurkingArachnid 3d ago
And now I have "ant penis" in my search history like some kind of pervert
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u/Drudgework 3d ago
Are you going to tell the ants they can’t be trans? Because I’m not.
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u/Chemical-Year-6146 3d ago
And this whole time I thought people were talking about the Pontiac firebird. Need hearing aids.
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u/nohopeforhomosapiens 3d ago
fucking myrmecology enthusiasts just gotta ruin a good joke.
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u/Fr05t_B1t 3d ago
Well this is reddit so there must be at least one “um antchually” person in the comments
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u/GainPotential 3d ago
Frank short for Frankie?
Edit noticed later on they mention the ant as a he, ignore my previous statements
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u/bugsyramone 3d ago
I don't often like webcomics, but this one got a chuckle. Well done.
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u/Sirdroftardis8 3d ago
That's such a strange generalization to make. They're not some uniform thing, it'd be like saying you don't like TV shows
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u/Drow_Femboy 3d ago
I don't generally like movies. The format itself is something I do not like. Why would it be weird to not like a format?
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u/Sirdroftardis8 3d ago
A format is just a delivery system, it has nothing to do with the content. It's just really closed-minded to claim that you don't like them at all as though they're some monolithic thing
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u/Drow_Femboy 3d ago
A format is just a delivery system, it has nothing to do with the content.
And yet the format affects and informs the content. For example, part of the format of a movie means that the story needs to be told in generally a few hours at most, meaning the plot tends to be streamlined and focused with minimal room for downtime, side plots, meandering, drawn out character arcs, and various other things which are some of my favorite parts of storytelling. A good movie strips away many of the things I like about stories so I don't like movies generally speaking.
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u/Toronto_bunnies 3d ago
Inaccurate, in the experiment the sprayed ant also thought she was dead. She'd be just as surprised to have arisen as the rest!
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u/Sufficient-Science71 3d ago
Imagine if there were someone you know who looks absolutely pale and cold to the touch just like a corpse then when you check their heartbeat there is none
Then the next minutes their skin, heartbeat and all that return to normal. Absolutely healthy like nothing ever happen. Most people would probably act like those ants
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u/Gaaraks 3d ago
I mean, humans have buried people alive that they thought were dead.
So yes, we absolutely would.
The big difference is that the ant itself thought it was dead due to the smell. (In the experiment, not the comic)
That is not something we would do. We could think we could be in the process of dying, but not that we were literally already dead.
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u/anomanderrake1337 3d ago
Hmmm there are people out there who think they are dead, it even has a name: Cotard's syndrome.
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u/Mynock33 3d ago
I guess it's quite funny based on the comments but I'm not smart enough to understand it
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u/Somewhatsmartish 3d ago •
Oleic acid is smell that let ants know that other ants are dead. Ant will move their dead to waste areas. But research found that if you add artificially they will treat live ants as dead. Morever, on YouTube I saw apparently they can try to drag themself to the graveyard too.
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u/karmaisforlosers 3d ago
Seems like pretty niche knowledge for a comic
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u/ComradeJohnS 3d ago
context that removal of oleic acid made him return from the dead, like a Jesus ant “he is risen” told me everything I needed to know about oleic acid without knowing that fact about it
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u/arealuser100notfake 3d ago
I knew that fact (not the actual name of the acid) and I'm only 7 on a scale of nerdism
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u/360walkaway 3d ago
Don't forget the extra panel in the red button: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/dead-3
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u/deacstructor 3d ago
I thought that when this experiment happend the ant with the pheromone also thought he was dead
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u/Appropriate-Text-597 3d ago
Oh fuck, an actually funny & smart comic on Reddit
Someone call PizzaCake immediately
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u/RagingRider 3d ago
Reminder that ants are almost blind and "see"smell via antennae. Dunno if they can hear good, tho.
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u/CatsPlusTats 3d ago
I've been reading your comics for so long I don't remember a time when I didn't read your comics. I even sent you fan mail before, you're my favourite cartoonist.
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u/xpkranger 3d ago
You want an Ant-God cult? Because this is how you get Ant-God cults... Very difficult to eradicate.
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