1 Paris: So, this Human G-gnome Project; how small can you make these variant humans?
2 fforbes-Davïs: We've got them down to a little under a metre at the moment. It's a convenient size for many reasons.
2 Paris: How so?
3 fforbes-Davïs: Lower life support requirements, for one. It also makes it much easier to dig tunnels for shelter under hills on colony worlds.
4 Paris: You mean...
4 fforbes-Davïs: Yes, they can live in alien hobbit-ats.

Ha! Gotcha!

I never said the hobbit puns had to be in the Fantasy theme.

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2016-12-07 Rerun commentary: It was quite fortunate how well the previous strip about the Human G-gnome Project led so easily and well into the setup for this gag. It's almost like I planned it! But no, in reality it was mostly a happy coincidence.

By the way, if you're compositing shots like this, you should be aware of the principle that the horizon line usually appears at around eye level. This is on the assumption that the viewpoint is another person standing nearby, so that the camera angle looks both natural and neutral. If you make the horizon lower than eye level, it looks like the scene was shot from a camera closer to the ground, and if you make the the horizon higher than eye level, it looks like the scene was shot from an elevated camera position (which you can get a slight feel for in the final panel). If you know this, then you can manipulate the horizon position to achieve different camera angle effects.