In the short story A Second Chance, published in 2000AD Prog 245 (Jan 1982), and written by Alan Moore and drawn by Jose Casanovas, the world’s ravaged by war, and a man and woman crawl from the wreckage.

They realise they have to start humanity over again, and the man says:

“Mavis,” she replies.

All rather amusing, I thought at the time, and I still do now. My expectations were confounded and from thence the humour arose.

However, have a look at this, the last three lines of the post-apocalyptic story The Voice In The Garden, written by Harlan Ellison in 1967, where a man and a woman talk about how they have to restart the human race:

He touched her hand. “I love you, What is your name?”
She flushed slightly. “Eve,” she said. “What’s yours?”
“Bernie,” he said.

I’m genuinely not accusing Mr Moore of nicking this idea, I think it’s probably one of those cases of ‘morphic resonance’ or an idea occurring independently to separate people at separate times, like Tesla and Edison. But I have to say that, given how popular both of these writers are. I’m surprised that I haven’t seen this comparison made before… can I truly be the first person to have spotted it?

Art from 2000AD (c) Copyright Rebellion Inc, 2009. Quote from The Voice In The Garden (c) The Kilimanjaro Corporation 1967, 2009. No infringement is intended, especially as I’m so keen on both the authors’ work.