Baby












This is a dark, satirical comic strip that uses a twist to deliver a punchline about audience expectations and horror tropes.
Here’s the sequence and what’s happening:
A mother looks into a crib at her baby, who is staring wide-eyed back at her (unusually alert and intense for a baby).
Close-ups emphasize the baby’s creepy, knowing stare.
The father enters the room, puts a hand on the worried mother’s shoulder, and they both look concerned.
The mother leans over the crib again, still looking disturbed.
The father stands in the doorway, watching silently.
The father gently touches the mother’s shoulder again as she grips the crib, clearly upset.
The couple quietly walks out of the room, leaving the crib behind.
The next panel shows a hand reaching into the crib and covering the baby’s mouth — implying the parents have decided to smother the baby because it’s “evil” or creepy-looking.
Cut to a movie theater screen saying “-END-” with an audience watching.
Final panel: the mother (now just a normal loving mom) gently checking on her peacefully sleeping baby.
The twist/reveal: The entire creepy sequence was a horror movie that the audience just watched. In reality, the baby is completely normal and the parents are loving and caring. The comic is mocking clichéd horror movie tropes (especially the “creepy staring baby = evil” cliché) by showing how ridiculous it is to assume a baby is demonic just because it looks at you intensely. The real-world final panel contrasts sharply with the movie’s dark ending, highlighting how over-the-top and unfounded the horror genre’s assumptions can be.
It’s a meta commentary on horror films and how they train audiences to see innocent things (like a baby staring) as sinister.