Editing 746: Birth

{{comic
| number    = 746
| date      = May 28, 2010
| title     = Birth
| image     = birth.png
| titletext = All those GTA marathons during the pregnancy were a bad idea.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Megan]] is in the process of giving birth. Instead of the normal birth we would expect, a baby's head and a gun emerge. The baby, who can already talk, attempts to rob the doctor saying, "Nobody move-this is a stick-up!" as is typical in movie robberies. It is not explained how the gun ended up in Megan's womb.

The title text explains the comic by explaining that the baby learned this bad behavior because his or her mother played the video game {{w|Grand Theft Auto (series)|''Grand Theft Auto'' (GTA)}} too frequently, as some people believe that if children play too many violent video games they act like the video games in real life. ''Grand Theft Auto'' has been criticized and publicly blamed for its potential to encouraging violent behavior in children. Thus, this comic is a parody of the studies and news stories about the effects of video games, especially ''Grand Theft Auto'', on children; it hyperbolizes them by imagining what effects video games would have on an unborn baby.

This is one of the few comics that features Megan's name in the text.

==Violent Video Games & GTA==
In Grand Theft Auto III players gained the ability to pay the services of prostitutes to recover their health, and if they wished, kill them to get their money back. There is also criticism from the focus on illegal activities in comparison with traditional "heroic" roles that other games offer. The main character can commit a wide variety of crimes and violent acts while dealing with only temporary consequences, including the killing of policemen and military personnel.

Some people believe that if children play too many violent video games they act like the video games in real life. Most of the news stories are usually based on anecdotal evidence.

===News===
These stories were in the news or the public consciousness at the time of the comic:

On June 25 teens William and Josh Buckner opened fire on vehicles on a local Tennessee highway with a shotgun and killed a 45-year-old man. They later told police they were emulating Grand Theft Auto and they did not intend to hurt anyone. 

Later in 2003 a 17 year old Devin Moore then grabbed a pistol from one of the police officers and shot and killed him along with another officer and dispatcher before fleeing in a police car. One of Moore's defense attorney, Jack Thompson, claimed it was Grand Theft Auto 's graphic nature—with his constant playing time—that caused Moore to commit the murders, and Moore's family agreed. In May 2005, Thompson appeared via satellite on the Glenn Beck program on CNN's Headline News. Thompson mentioned Devin Moore and said regarding Grand Theft Auto III and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City "There's no doubt in my mind [...] that but for Devin Moore's training on this cop killing simulator, he would not have been able to kill three cops in Fayette, Alabama who are now dead and in the ground."

In September 2006, Thompson brought another lawsuit, claiming that Cody Posey played the game obsessively before murdering his father Delbert Paul Posey, stepmother Tryone Schmid, and stepsister Marilea Schmid on a ranch in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

==Transcript==
:[Megan is giving birth. A doctor stands near the end of the table.]
:Doctor: Okay, the head is starting to crown.
:Doctor: Push!

:Doctor: Wait, that's... that's a tube.

:Doctor: It looks like the barrel of a...

:[A ''Click'' noise comes from Megan's vagina.]

:[A voice, that of the baby, comes from Megan's vagina.]
:Baby: Nobody move— This is a stick-up!
:Doctor: Oh, God! Stop pushing, Megan! Can you ... Pull?

== Trivia ==
*The strap of the doctor's mask is missing in the third panel.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Video games]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics with babies]]
[[Category:Medicine]]