The Darkest Thing

s/lunar eclipse/new moon/

Lunar eclipses turn the moon a ruddy red color. New moon (opposite of a full moon) is darker.

This looks more like a solar eclipse
- Good point. And technically, a new moon is only visible during a solar eclipse 👍
Darker doesn't always mean blacker. Symbolically, a blood moon is "darker" (as in "ominous" and "eerie") than a new moon. The red color has many meanings, ranging from passion to wrath. Even after science emerged to explain such phenomena (the red color being just the longest wavelength part of visible electromagnetic spectra, the blood moon being just a combination of physical and astrophysical factors such as Rayleigh scattering and planetary alignment, etc), the blood moon still gets a "bad omen" vibe nowadays, a vibe that's absolutely not present during new moons (it's worth mentioning that they happen once or twice every month, differently from a blood moon which is a somewhat-rare event).
- Yes! But the joke seems to be that he's describing literal darkness, and then pivots to disturbing darkness.

The joke in my part of the world used to be "a black cat in a coal cellar at midnight". That this is also a cat makes me think that the artist might be familiar with that idiom.

Mine was "darker than a black cat in a coal mine at night" but I think it's just easier for hicks with an accent to say. Far less racist than the other ways they would say "dark".
- Oof. I'd never even thought about it in terms of race, but now you mention it, I have to wonder if I ever heard it in that context.
  
  ... and, not that I remember, probably have. sigh

The darkest thing is the universe, in about 10^10¹²⁰ years (or seconds, or stellar lifespans, it's all the same at this time scale), after every star has died, every black hole dissipated, and every material object quantum tunneled out of existence, when energy is as dispersed as it can possibly be

And then?
- And then the concept of "and then" ceases have meaning, when the ratio between the time when there are things and the time when there are no things approaches 0
- and then put it in a bag and put that bag in my hands, cause i'm ready to eat

How is the moon eclipsing the sun at midnight?

Unless you're at one of the poles

But why would a panther be at one of the poles

It's a lunar eclipse, the Earth is eclipsing the moon, preventing it from reflecting the light of the sun
- A lunar eclipse usually results in a red moon, since the moon is lit with red light from all the sunsets on Earth simultaneously
  
  It's not in pure shadow, since the Earth's atmosphere acts as a lens and bends some of the light inward towards the moon
- Oh right, the clean lines threw me off. Lunar eclipse shadows are much more diffuse.

Caught in a hangover from his plentiful dark rum benders