Comic #6215: scholars

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Sure! Here’s the transcription of the comic:

Panel 1: Person 1: Ugh! It drives me nuts the way these bad fantasy novels and idiotic thrillers sell millions while real art languishes.
Person 2: That's why you need us, Rachel. That is why you need us.

Panel 2: Person 3: Who…?
Person 4: The literature scholars.

Panel 3: Person 4: We dwell in the darkness, scorned by society. Silent. Watching. Collecting.
Person 5: Not just the great works of fiction and theatre, no. All the leavings of all the other fields went to us. When psychology had enough of Freud and cast him off… We took his works. They are ours now. Nietzsche is ours now. Gibbon is ours now.

Panel 4: Person 4: Who among the scientists reads Newton any more? None. There is only we, the twee and judgmental. Francis Bacon is ours. Galileo is ours. Darwin. Even now we are swallowing Einstein and Gödel.

Panel 5: Person 6: These popular books? They depend for their survival on the fickle fancy of the public. But the public only wants what is new. I detest the new.
Person 4: Thus, when these books wither from public interest, only we can save them. Ha! Like a rat only too late realizing its tail is in the trap, they will look at us with imploring fear and find us unimpressive, incapable of the task.

Panel 6: Person 4: Our underworld is savage. Our underworld is just.
Person 7: I feel like you’ve gotten weird ever since you had to teach humanities to pre-meds.
Person 4: Rats in a trap… Rats! Rats!

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