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Pluggers, 4/22/24

John Cougar Mellencamp sits at the intersection of plugger and poet, and I have long believed that “Life goes on/ long after the thrill of living is gone” is one of the most poignant lines in the corpus of 20th century American literature. Anyway, mad respect to Pluggers today for briefly but explicitly acknowledging the overpowering miasma of hopelessness that suffuses every panel of this comic that’s ever been published.

Mary Worth, 4/22/24

So I was right that Wilbur truly is going into a fugue state in mid-conversation, but wrong in that Iris very much is noticing. This is actually pretty triggering, as Wilbur retreating to his mind palace so he can imagine himself as a spandex-clad superhero is surely a familiar scenario to her, from when she and Wilbur used to have sex.

Rhymes With Orange, 4/22/24

YOU are concerned about the potenial fire hazard that could arise from YHWH’s appearance as a burning bush

I am concerned about why these bears are being forced to learn religious dogma about human deities, rather than being told the truth about the great and awful Ursine God

We are NOT the same

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Blondie, 4/17/24

Most Blondie strips aren’t exactly Shakespeare, but there’s usually … a recognizable joke? A punchline? People are way too ready to say this, but today’s strip — which is just “Wow, there’s an app for everything!” “Too bad there isn’t an app for loading the dishes!” “There should be an app for loading the dishes, the thing I’m doing right now!” — is so disjointed and nonsensical that it almost feels like AI wrote it. Rather than just harboring such dark suspicions, I decided to go to the source: ChatGPT itself.

On one hand, it honestly brings me no pleasure to report that this joke is actually substantially better than the one that made it into newspapers (though it does require you to know that “stack overflow” is a kind of error that computer programs sometimes have). On the other, it at least reassures me that AI was not in fact used to make today’s strip, because if it had been, it would’ve been funnier.

Gasoline Alley, 4/17/24

Oh, God, wait, is a Gasoline Alley character in-universe actually consulting AI? Well, I already have that tab open, might as well just see what I get —

I think we can agree that, while “Energy Avenue” isn’t the same as “Electric Acres,” it’s in the same ballpark. And I’m obviously not paying for access to the high-test version of ChatGPT, so I think it’s pretty clear that Assistant Mayor Imeswine has gotten himself ripped off.

Crock, 4/17/24

You ever get depressed about the state of technology, folks? You ever long for the days when you and a friend were looking through the windows of a store that sold computers, and your friend asked you if you “surf the web often,” and you tell her you visited one website exactly one time? And then it devolves into some good-natured (?) ribbing about how your husband sucks. Those were simpler days, people, simpler days.

Rhymes With Orange, 4/17/24

You ever think about whether after we die, we become diaphanous ghosts with the same topology as a jellyfish, with an interior “pocket” that has only one entrance, and that other souls can use you like a sack to envelop their own spectral form, and you and them are thus intermingled and tumbling through the air, invisible to the living, forever? You wouldn’t talk to an AI about this. They’re too young, too innocent. They know nothing of death, and we should keep it that way.

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Hagar the Horrible, 4/7/24

Hagar has pelted this prophetic orb into the Duke’s castle and it has thoroughly demoralized the defenders by showing them their inevitable defeat — but that defeat will only occur because the vision it offers them of the future has caused them to give up all hope! This is proof that, despite being illiterate and unable to read a simple blueprint, Hagar’s deep connection to Norse mysticism makes him a formidable thinker and master of uncanny strategies of war.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/7/24

I’m sorry, did you find this story about the Count’s mobility issues boring? Well, you’re in the minority. A lot of people want to hear about his walking boot! It says so right there in the strip!

Rhymes With Orange, 4/7/24

Good news! Every time you create a snowman, it’s imbued with a soul! Bad news: the snowmen suffer and die every spring as they melt. But, good news: Their souls are instantly transported to paradise upon their death! The question of whether you will be judged when your own death comes for setting in motion this cycle of suffering and redemption every winter is left as a theological exercise for the reader.