And they all lived happily ever after?

This is a darkly humorous, satirical comic strip that re-tells the classic children’s story “Pinocchio” as an environmental parable set in the modern day (starting in 2019). It’s a mash-up of the original fairy tale with heavy eco-criticism and commentary on plastic pollution and climate change.

Here’s the sequence panel-by-panel:

1. Geppetto and Pinocchio are happily rowing straight into the open mouth of a gigantic whale (Monstro from the original story).
→ Instead of fleeing, they’re casually heading inside, as if it’s normal.

2. Inside the whale’s stomach: it’s full of colorful plastic trash, bottles, bags, etc. Geppetto and Pinocchio are walking around on a makeshift raft of logs, surrounded by garbage. Pinocchio’s nose is growing because he’s lying (classic Pinocchio trait), and both look shocked/horrified.

3. They manage to escape the whale. Geppetto emerges from the sea looking like a hippie/eco-messiah: long hair, beard, holding a broken pink plastic sandal in one hand and a leaking disposable vape in the other, with a blissful expression (“I have seen the truth”).

4. Geppetto, now fully transformed into a real boy (ironic reversal), walks through the forest carrying firewood on his back, but he’s horrified to discover someone has cut down a tree (the stump is fresh). He drops his axe in despair.

5. Title card: “Once upon a time in 2019” over an ocean full of floating plastic trash.

6. Cut to a drowned, flooded world. A village is underwater, traditional Korean-style houses half-submerged, garbage everywhere. Three women in hanbok (traditional Korean dress) stand solemnly in the water like ghosts or deities.

7. A group of modern people in traditional clothing are excitedly taking selfies with a huge dead sea turtle that has a plastic straw stuck in its nose (the famous viral image that sparked the anti-straw movement). They’re smiling and posing like tourists.

8. Final panel: one of the women from earlier is now riding a giant sea turtle underwater, surrounded by plastic waste, looking sad/exhausted.

Overall message (very blunt and cynical):
Humanity in the 2010s/2020s discovered the horrifying amount of plastic in the ocean (symbolized by being swallowed by the whale full of trash), had a brief moment of performative eco-awakening (Geppetto’s “enlightenment,” viral turtle selfies, banning straws), then immediately went back to business as usual while the planet quietly drowned. The fairy-tale characters witness the hypocrisy and collapse.

It’s a Korean webcomic-style piece (the clothing and art style suggest that), using the innocence of Pinocchio to deliver a brutal gut-punch about environmental inaction.

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