Comic #6387: scribe-a

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Description

Here is the transcription of the comic:

Panel 1: “There’s only one extant manuscript of the story we call Beowulf. We don’t know much about it, but we do know there were two scribes, likely of different ages.”

Panel 2: “HOW?”

“They use different font styles, and one of them is a bit older than the other.”

Panel 3: “The person using the older style makes changes and corrections to the person using the newer style.”

Panel 4: “So there’s this young person, and we don’t know their name or anything about them other than one fact that has persisted through a thousand years, which is that they were bad at their day job.”

Panel 5: “Because they happened to be bad at their day job while compiling the oldest long poem in English, their mediocrity will persist through eternity, one day known to vast machine intelligences inhabiting faraway galaxies.”

Panel 6: “During his lifetime, this guy had no idea about any of this, which goes to show fame and reputation and all human pursuits that don’t orient around living well are idiotic.”

Panel 7: “WOW.”

Panel 8: “Is that why you keep this shrine to a monk named ‘Mediocritus’?”

Panel 9: “May the work of his hands forever remain pretty okay!”

Panel 10 (Bottom of the comic): (Illustration of a shrine) (Statue with a face and a symbol)

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