Comic #2752: 2012-11-29

Description

Here is a detailed description of the comic's text:

Panel 1: Text at the top: "And each year, the king was weighed and the villagers would receive gold equal to his weight."

Panel 2: Text: "But the village mathematicians realized that higher weight meant a shorter lifespan." Character dialogue (from a mathematician): "If he's half as massive but lives twice as long, we braver even."

Panel 3: Another character says: "Well, then it's a simple optimization problem."

Panel 4: Text: "The ideal weight was around 250 pounds." A character responds: "If he's mostly muscle, his weight will be high and his lifespan will increase."

Panel 5: Text: "So the king was put on a crash fitness program."

Panel 6: Text: "Until the village economists made a suggestion." Economist's dialogue: "If we get more money up front, we could use compound interest to make more money than just by receiving earnings over the king's lifespan. We should frontload now."

Panel 7: Text: "So the economists supplied the king with ten tons of bacon. The doctors injected him with muscle influences, which caused him to sleep 20 hours a day."

Panel 8: Text: "Soon, the town was fabulously wealthy. The new moneyed class had the power to demand a republic, and the king died from cardiac disease. The end."

Final Panel: Text: "So the moral is…" A character reading a book says: "Sucks to be that one king?"

The comic humorously combines themes of economics, health, and governance, ending with a lighthearted observation about the complexities of leadership.