239

Inquisitiveness
Posted on January 31, 2023 by David M Willis

239 thoughts on “Inquisitiveness”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    Is the lampshade for that streetlight? Because what they threw is HUGE

    1. Clif

      Now see, I thought saying Internet instead of the Metaverse was the lampshade.

      1. Taffy

        Pretty sure it’s only called that by detached techbros with no remaining connection to reality.

        1. Opus the Poet

          Totally unlike people commenting on a webcomic page

        2. Lysbeth

          Well we’re commenting on reality, not on how our bad Second Life twin towers of the WTC never fell in fantasyland. That’s gotta count for something.

  2. Doctor_Who

    Booster: “I have checked The Internet on my Phone.”

    Ethan: “Oh, is that the latest Phone?”

    Booster: “Yes, it has more Megapixels than the last one.”

    1. Rose by Any Other Name

      My Wife: “I’m so jealous of your phone. It has more megapixels than mine!”

      Me: “Do you want to use my phone to take some photos?”

      My Wife: “No! I want a better phone with more megapixels than yours!”

      This is seriously an accurate summary of conversation that we had back in October. She got her new phone – with more megapixels than mine – for Solstice.

      1. The Wellerman

        I can just picture Booster going on about how there’s much more to better photos than just megapixels LOL ?

        Speaking of which, re:autism, thanks for replying, it’s awesome that your wife got the diagnosis. also yeah, you probably were horny Dina in college. ?

        1. Opus the Poet

          Yes indeed, the optics are as important as the number of pixels, the more pixels, the more important the optics become to actually use the pixels.

      2. Needfuldoer

        A traditional digital camera with a larger image sensor but fewer megapixels will take better photos than a smartphone with more megapixels.

        1. Casi

          but a traditional digital camera is more equipment you have to bring with you.

        2. Smallmoon

          But if you spend the money on the DSLR, you’re more likely to schlep it around to justify the cost!

        3. Mark

          Ha, the camera is the smallest and lightest piece of that equipment.

      3. nobodybasically

        Have you shown her that XKCD comic?

      4. Felian

        This sounds like such a silly argument, but it does sound like it’s all in good fun and it was a great present 🙂

    2. Electric

      So outdated since the comic was written, we use Ultrapixels now

      1. Clif

        We use Metapixels here in the Metaverse.

        1. Needfuldoer

          In the future, cameras will only have one pixel each. They’ll use heavy processing and upscaling to make up the difference.

        2. milu

          We’ll finally all have access to that “enhancing” software that previously only spy agencies and some otherwise undistinguished police departments were equipped with, as seen in The Movies

        3. Mark

          Nah, they’ll just be on all the time, and the carriers will just get a pixel each from everyone around you to synthesize the image they think you should have been making.

        4. Rose by Any Other Name

          @Clif: As someone who dressed as Violet for Halloween, I appreciate that joke. ^^

        5. Clif

          😀

      2. Casi

        Wouldn’t we go up to gigapixels?

        1. khn0

          And that’s why I don’t have a smartphone anymore. updating, upgrading without pause, to keep the pace with obsolescence of desires?
          No, I’ll keep my old phony machine and let as much of rare-earth elements in the ground.

      3. Ana Chronistic

        It is now Dynamaxels

    3. davidbreslin101

      “Bing it!” – Bad Machinery.

  3. DailyBrad

    I love them busting each other’s chops.

    1. MaximumZero

      And also the 4th wall, with the force of a million suns.

      1. Psychie

        They didn’t break the 4th wall, they spoke in a weird way, largely due to the nature of the medium, and then acknowledged the way they spoke was weird. If anything that’s leaning on the 4th wall, as lampshade hanging often (but not always) is, but really that’s the sort of exchange I have with my friends IRL, so I’m not sure if this one is even sufficiently meta to qualify as even leaning on the 4th wall.

        1. milu

          if “meta” referencing the medium from inside the story, then this is definitely meta. They didn’t literally say “we are in a comic” but the whole joke relies on the fact that they are.

          How is lampshade hanging sometimes not “lean on the 4th wall”? i feel like lampshading is defined by implicitly breaking kayfabe? I’m probably working from an incomplete definition?

        2. Psychie

          Lampshade hanging is when they point out a trope (usually) for comedic effect. Leaning on the 4th wall is when they make allusions to the medium but are sufficiently vague or indirect as to avoid fully breaking said 4th wall.

          This could just be me, but I would say that if a line or conversation could plausibly happen in real life then it might not even count as leaning on the 4th wall. My friends and I regularly call out tropes when we see them in our daily lives, especially when they crop up in conversations, and we make use of them as a short hand form of communication sometimes where applicable. This means that I engage in lampshade hanging in my real life, and I am under no delusions about being a fictional character with an audience watching me/reading about me, ergo I’d say that any instance of lampshade hanging would have to be fairly contrived to qualify as leaning on the 4th wall using my standards. Obviously others are welcome to disagree.

  4. Taffy

    There’s always a new superhero film and most of them are mid. It’s safer not to bother learning the names and to just assume there’s one playing at all times.

    1. GholaHalleck

      “Want to sit in a dark room and look at reasonably attractive men in spandex pants and eat overpriced sugar treats?”

      “You had me at sit.”

    2. Axel

      I was thinking he might not be paying attention to superheroes anymore, (especially in live action movies since they’re just pumped out faster than I can keep track of, and I don’t have any trauma related to friends who were into superhero media) and be offering a generic ‘yes’

      1. Axel

        https://www.dumbingofage.com/2022/comic/book-12/03-trial-and-sarah/traumaresponse/

    3. shoopdawhoop

      I mean “that new superhero film” is basically the Marvel movie roadmap for the next 10 years verbatim.

  5. Steve

    An early preview showing for Ant Man 3 obv. 🙂

    1. Carla's #2 Fan

      Wakanda Forever is still in theaters

      1. Marma

        It comes to disney+ tomorrow.

    2. Needfuldoer

      The joke could’ve easily used Robo-Vac, but then we wouldn’t have gotten the last panel.

  6. Kyrik Michalowski

    Ah the ever burdening nature of different time scales. To which I say, “Balls.”
    Then I would probably help two guys with the new problem of the week.

    1. milu

      Booster is not a guy. If that’s what you meant?? Apologies if i just missed the joke

      1. Kyrik Michalowski

        I was making a “Supernatural” reference, but it didn’t come across very well.

  7. BOOSTER SHOT

    Finally, the confirmation I was looking for, that DoA takes place in a non-Covid AU. Wonder how long that can last?

    1. Nathan

      Great username (and image) for this comment

      1. The Wellerman

        Very much so. Don’t get COVID, it sucks! ?

        1. RassilonTDavros

          It feels like everybody I know except me has gotten COVID. I’m certainly not jealous by any means– the long-term effects it has had and is still having on my brother are depressing as all hell to watch him struggle with– but it’s weird that they’ve all had this shared experience they compare notes about all the time and I’m just stuck saying “yeah, I can’t even imagine what it’s like.”

        2. Rabid Rabbit

          Just become a pandemic hipster. “Oh, I was going to get COVID, but then everyone started to.”

        3. Opus the Poet

          I can say you’re not alone, I got vaxxed and boosted as quick as I coul, but haven’t had the most recent booster, and I’m the only one in the family who hasn’t tested positive yet. It’s annoying to the rest of the family that I never get sick and the only time I went to the hospital was when I got hit by the truck and subsequent repairs as they found stuff later they missed the first time.

        4. shoopdawhoop

          I miss it being last year when I could say this

        5. Needfuldoer

          I finally caught the plague for the first time a few weeks ago. 104 degree fevers aren’t fun; I can think of better excuses to sleep for almost two days straight.

        6. The Wellerman

          That’s not even the worse of it. You can nearly suffocate, and right now long COVID has my back in AGONY ?

        7. Needfuldoer

          Yeah, I guess I got a mild strain. It was about 2 days of a high fever and another couple days of flu-like symptoms. After that it was about a week before my sense of smell was back to normal.

          I feel like I’m complaining to a drowning person because my drink is too warm… Sorry you’re still dealing with it!

        8. davidbreslin101

          I have it now. Main problem at the moment is running out of everything, including the cough medicine that stops my lungs filling up with crap. Also, the rules for going back to work or to the shops are too vague. How DARE they throw it back on my “common sense”? I don’t have any.

        9. The Wellerman

          Even worse than that in some places. As soon as those rules were rolled back in China, things immediately got worse again, people collapsing and other ugly sights. It got so out of hand that their government even stopped collecting statistics. ?

        10. milu

          I’m not sure the chinese government not collecting (or not publishing) statistics is that dramatic a threshold

        11. Laura

          Paxlovid, my dear! Get it delivered or through a drive-thru window! Good luck to you!

          Treatment dispensaries:
          https://aspr.hhs.gov/TestToTreat/Pages/default.aspx

        12. Laura

          Here are the CDC guidelines on when to end Isolation and how to Isolate:

          https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-health/isolation.html

        13. Laura

          Here is a directory of local health departments in the USA to get local COVID-19 resources and guidelines for Isolation duration and masking: https://www.naccho.org/membership/lhd-directory

          Hope all goes well!

    2. Thag Simmons

      We are at the point where Covid measures are relaxed enough that you could put this comic post-covid.

      But yes, perils of the sliding timescale.

    3. anon

      tbf. it probably wouldn’t stop college students from doing what they want. tho a six foot distance, “every 3rd-4th seat” being empty in a movie theatre would be enjoyable esp for a comedy where it’d be hard to hear over ppl laughing (surprised there’s not more subtitles by default on movies, besides just the foreign translated ones)

      1. GholaHalleck

        The real reason Dotty was a dryer apart that whole time was Covid sanctions.

        1. The Wellerman

          Wouldn’t hand holding defeat the purpose of said distance? ?

        2. Clif

          I’m sure they washed them afterwards.

      2. milu

        Do theaters still require sitting x seats apart in the US? Over here (france) the covid restrictions have pretty much entirely been lifted. I still try to wear an FFP2 mask in public places, buy i’m often the only one (aside from some old people). I wonder if the scary cost of healthcare in the US does encourage more people to still take it seriously??

        1. Yumi

          Haha. No.

        2. Tyce

          Quite the opposite, really.

        3. khn0

          The given reason is that test concerts didn’t bring much more contaminations “because people were looking in the same direction” and not speaking to each others. Where I work, it’s a bout one person in thirty that wears a mask, and most customers are well over sixty.

    4. Psychie

      Movie theaters in Bloomington are open and have been for a long, long while. Granted, neither of them are all that close to the campus, and given how late it appears to be I doubt it would be easy for them to reach either of them in time for the final showings for the night. The closer one is the east side theater, which is the shitty one, but they’d probably need to take a bus there to get there in any reasonable amount of time, and I’m not sure how close a bus would get them since I’m not all that familiar with the bus stop locations on that side of town, there might be a stop right there or they might need to walk a couple blocks, and that’s assuming there’s a bus going there with a route that goes through campus, IIRC only a couple of city bus routes do and while both of them go to the east side that doesn’t mean they go to the theater, so they might need to transfer at the bus station. All in all, I worry about Booster’s assessment for how easily they can make it there in time to catch the start of the movie.

      1. milu

        How do you know that it’s late?
        It’s January so the fact that it’s dark could mean it’s like 5pm

        1. Taffy

          Closer to 3, lately.

        2. Psychie

          Sunset in early-mid January in Bloomington is around 20 ’till 6 at the earliest, and the sky doesn’t get quite that dark until a half hour to an hour after sunset (due to residual light from over the horizon), this changes when the sky is cloudy, but that sky looks pretty cloudless to me. I’d estimate that it’s about 6:10-ish at the absolute earliest. The local theaters have their last show for the night between 6 and 7:30 for most of their movies due to not yet being on their full schedules after covid yet. They wouldn’t say “there’s a showing soon, if we hop to it” if it was only a little after 6 and the showing was 7 or later, I’d guess, based on my checking of the local theaters that we’re looking at a 6:40 showing at the latest, that means they have at most a half hour to get to the theater before the previews start, it looks like they’re outside of Read right now, if they walk to the east side theater they’re looking at a 38 minute hike, at least, according to google maps a bus could get them there in about 16 minutes, but you have to add any time spent waiting for the bus to that and sadly the busses here aren’t super reliable.

  8. butts

    could’ve said “the new Spider-Man movie”, there’s always another one of them fuckin things

    1. Doctor_Who

      Sony needs to keep making them to retain the rights, so we’ll be getting Spider-Man movies until the end of time.

      Or until Disney finally takes over every other media company, followed shortly by the world.

      1. Clif

        So next week then.

    2. Jamie

      Are there more or less Spiderman movies than Batman movies?

      1. Taffy

        Focusing solely on live action, not counting team-ups, there are 8 Spidey films and 9 Batman films.

        Batman has Spidey vastly outnumbered in animated films, also.

        1. Taffy

          I’ll also add that Spidey’s live action outings consistently entertain me more than Batman’s. A lot of that might be the music in those older Batmovies. It was a lot to deal with, most of the time. And then I just kinda liked the Nolan ones okay, nothing special in any of them and the audio pisses me off in a very serious way. Characters whispering followed by deafening rackets will always guarantee I hate your movie, and that’s all there is to that.

        2. Thag Simmons

          I wanted to disagree with this, but actually thinking about it Spidey’s had like four decent films and four bad ones, whereas Batman has a genuine masterpiece, two decent films, two bad but deeply entertaining films, three fever dreams and one throughly middling film.

        3. Thag Simmons

          For the record the Masterpiece is the 1966 Adam West movie, which is flawless

        4. Clif

          An Adam West movie, by definition, contains Adam West.

        5. Ed Rhodes

          A minor flaw; in the final battle on board the submarine, the sky has wrinkles! Once you see them, they stare into your soul!

        6. Taffy

          That’s just reality breaking from how cool that Batman is.

        7. Taffy

          I can’t agree that there were only 50% decent Spidey films. I consider all of them really strong showings, each for different reasons.

        8. BBCC

          I love the Mai Valentine icon <3

    3. zee

      And for bonus points, in a few months it’ll be referring to the new spider verse. On the tricky side how they react after is key. I mean, no one in their right mind would react to spider verse and another MCU Spidey movie the same

  9. Nono

    I’ve cooled off a lot from Marvel since Endgame. Watched Black Widow, Thor and Wakanda Forever. They were all… ok? They do their job, but don’t really compare to Ragnarok or Black Panther. No real interest in Ant-Man 3.

    1. Alongcameaspider

      Ant-man 3 makes me irrationally angry

      The entire appeal of the Ant-man movies was they were self contained breather episodes between the major ones, just fun adventures with relatively low stakes

      Why on earth would you make one that’s the centerpiece of the entire current plot line for the universe

      1. anonymsly

        Unfortunately Marvel but themselves in the ass – Ant-Man’s the only property with access to time/dimensional hoopla without the persistent asshole vibe that is Dr, Strange, since they have not yet introduced the Marvel Universe’s ACTUAL time/dimension crazy weirdos, the Fantastic Four. (That’s the one I’m sad about. It’s gonna be terrible, because no one in show biz seems to understand what the Fantastic Four actually are and aren’t. I know this because all movies to date have insisted they’re superheroes.)

        1. Clif

          True enough, but the Disfunctional Family slot has kind of been taken over by Guardians of the Galaxy.

      2. Taffy

        They’ve been dicking around since Endgame. May as well put a plot somewhere.

      3. Thag Simmons

        What I heard was that the Director got tired of making the breather episodes and wanted to make an Endgame and they decided to let him

        Not the choice I would have gone with.

      4. Jamie

        Was Ant-Man ever claimed to be that? That seems like a really dumb way to market a movie.

        1. Thag Simmons

          The main villain of the last one was Walton Goggins and some goons he found on craigslist.

      5. GholaHalleck

        If Ant Man Three isn’t just an hour and half of an entire room of Time Displaced Micheal Douglas’s (Duglassi?) making Pym Particles like Walter Whites on acid, I’ll be sorely disinterested.

        1. milu

          Love the concept of “sorely disinterested” =)
          “Painfully unconvinced.”
          “Devastatingly skeptical.”
          “Crazed with ambivalence.

          Don’t mind me, go on

        2. Clif

          I quite liked Crazed With Ambivalence. Stolen.

    2. AbacusWizard

      I loved Spiderman Homecoming, Black Panther, and Thor Ragnarok. But the whole Avengers III/IV thing pretty much ended my interest in the whole MCU franchise. If the directors can kill off main characters all over the place because they don’t like them, and kill off 3/4 of the world’s population and bring back *some* of them five years later and then just continue as if it was no big deal, why should I even care about these characters or this setting?

      1. Jeff K!

        That was a scenario directly out of the original Infinity Gauntlet comic, although it was given much bigger stakes in the movie by placing the destruction of half the universe at the end of a movie and given five years to breathe rather than being deleted at the end of one issue and brought back an issue and a half later, with about an hour interim in-story.

        1. Joy

          Pesky actors age :/// /s

        2. Taffy

          Didn’t Thanos also put Captain America’s head in a block of acrylic like five seconds after the snap thing, too? It’s been a minute since I read that story.

    3. AKP

      I had been not liking most marvel movies very much for a while before Endgame came around. Thor Ragnarok was kind of the major exception, but like. There’s only so many movies I can watch that start off by pretending to have substance and then never address any of the substance in favor of bombastic fight scenes. I would say maybe I just shouldn’t be watching action movies except that while I have criticisms of it, the most recent Batman really did do it for me. So did Shazam. And Birds of Prey. Like there are clearly superhero movies that work for me, but they have to like care about their themes and their characters in really genuine ways and for the most part marvel movies don’t feel like they do that and haven’t for a long time.

    4. Amós Batista

      Me too, but I gave up watching any movie after Endgame.
      Nothing catches my attention anymore. I don’t know why.

      1. Opus the Poet

        I actually bought one of the Spiderman animated movies because I saw so many articles praising the artwork, which was honestly spectacular. Also that movie did a much better job of introducing Miles Morales than the comics did.

        1. Amós Batista

          Gonna try this tip. Thanks.

    5. zee

      Infinity was pissed me off bc i only watched the preceding marvel movies so i could watch Thor Ragnarok and black panther. I’ve gone on a billion rants about how it ruined the MCU, blah blah blah. I refuse to interact with anything but Thor and the occasional Spidey movie if my boyfriend reeeeally wants to.

      Thor Love and Thunder was awesome in my opinion. I mean, it wasnt like…high cinema or whatever but it was dumb fun which was all I ever needed it to be. a fun romp. Not enough superhero movies are fun romps these days

      1. zee

        That’s the biggest problem with the MCU now. Marvel movies are supposed to be fun, but they’re not fun anymore. They’re homework. You have to study 8 movies and 15 new Disney+ series with nauseatingly awful CGI bc Disney works their SFX apartment like slaves, all just so you can watch a mediocre movie that’s more about “hey isn’t it cool all these characters are in this same room together?! Isn’t this crossover aMbItIoUs?!!!” than being entertaining.

        Like MCU was always mediocre but at least it was less work to understand one movie before

  10. Alongcameaspider

    This is smart writing by Willis because there’s always a new Superhero movie

    1. butting

      Even more smart not to specify the franchise. That way, we can imagine them talking about a DCEU property and being too embarrassed to mention the title, the characters, or even the franchise altogether.

      Relatable.

      1. Jamie

        I mean, it’s Power Rangers 2, right?

        1. Taffy

          Any day now. It’s only been six years.

        2. GholaHalleck

          Tommy’s still alive in DoA timeline.

        3. Dara

          Mystery Men 2. Please, just give me this.

      2. Alongcameaspider

        We can even pretend that they’re in a universe where the DCEU wasn’t hot garbage that spawned the most annoying fanbase on the internet

        1. Taffy

          I can’t watch Batman V Superman without falling asleep. I’ve tried five times.

  11. RassilonTDavros

    Oh no, Becky’s awareness of the sliding timescale from that one Patreon strip is spreading

    The Soggies will soon be upon us

    1. saltchocolate

      Dear god, not the Soggies coming over into the Dumbyverse!!

      (Willis, I came here to say please “date” your comic strips! Let them be full of nostalgia & reasons to suspend disbelief. ?)

      1. milu

        Oh, they are. This is just for the joke, willis is not usually so shy about referencing pop culture (see e.g. Taffy’s current avatar which is a reference to an in-comic reference to Spiderman 3)

        1. Taffy

          My what?

        2. Clif

          Taffy has always had this avatar. You can go back in the archives and check.

  12. Slartibeast Button, BIA

    After all, don’t want to mention the MCU and have this look silly in 2030 when the MCU is passe and the Rip-Off Comics Universe is ultra-hot.

    1. Thag Simmons

      It does sort of feel like the sun is starting to set on the MCU empire.

      1. Alongcameaspider

        Now the whole craze is overly brutal deconstructions of the genre

        1. Thag Simmons

          The superhero craze started with Watchmen and the Nolan Batmen, and there have consistently been gritty deconstructions of varying quality throughout the reign of the MCU.

      2. Nono

        Endgame was their last hurrah, in a way. Most of the recognizable heroes are retired/killed off now. They might squeeze out another Thor, but I can’t really see a new Hulk movie and I’m not watching Guardians as long as Chris Pratt is in it.

        1. Thag Simmons

          Guardians 3 might do okay and Spider-man is consistently big, but yeah.

          They do have Fantastic Four and X-Men back, so we’ll see what they do on that front. If they get a second wind, that’ll be how.

        2. Nono

          Oh Guardians 3 will probably do well, I just don’t want to watch it.

          It’s a shame because I did enjoy the first two.

        3. Mark

          Oh, but they can do prequels and Super Babies and all the other exhausting stuff that studios do to squeeze one more drop of blood out of that turnip.

        4. Rose by Any Other Name

          @Nono:
          What? Why? Last I knew, Chris Pratt was dull and inoffensive. A quick Google of his name hasn’t turned up any horrific scandals.

        5. Taffy

          People are mostly just sick of him being in everything. I think he might also be a fundie in some way, don’t quote this sentence.

        6. davidbreslin101

          So far as I can tell, it’s ‘cos years ago he attended an outspokenly homophobic church for a while, and this means he is Bad Forever. (That he presumably /left/ an outspokenly homophobic church gets ignored.)

        7. thejeff

          Maybe. He seems to have been pretty cagey about the whole thing, so it’s hard to be sure why he left or even if he left. He also defended the church as not being homophobic.
          A lot of it reads like he got in trouble and his PR told him to do damage control. Which is fine, I guess. At least he’s not trying to play “support me because I’ve been cancelled by the left” card.

        8. not someone else

          Yeah I’m not sure where people got the impression he left just because he doesn’t talk about it openly. He’s an Evangelical Christian, as recently as the summer he still attends an Evangelical Fundamentalist Church- and no, it doesn’t say those words on there, you have to speak Christian to know it even has a position on anything- and the best anyone can say about him is that he’s real gosh darn nice so they’re sure he doesn’t believe anything bad. Sure, his response to accusations was “oh we’re all sinners, I’m divorced and that’s the same thing” but that can’t be a dogwhistle.

          As we all know, someone from Minnesota being Nice has absolutely no chance of being anything other than face value.

        9. Rose by Any Other Name

          … so he’s _might_ have some right-wing views, but keeps his mouth shut and _doesn’t_ use his platform to preach hate crimes?

          **breathes a sigh of relief – can safely watch Guardians 3**

          These days, I’m happy to accept a neutral ‘live and let live’ on the matter.

    2. Jeff K!

      We were supposed to get a new cinematic universe if Bloodshot was a success.

      …

      *sigh*

      1. Mark

        “Oh, no, not another one!” — Marvin

    3. Doctor_Who

      Everyone knows that the King Features Syndicate universe is the next big thing.

      When they finally crossover, the Defenders of the Earth movie will break 4 billion at the box office.

    4. Otl1973

      Are you implying that in our timeframe they won’t actually get to the theater until 2030? It’s slow, but it isn’t quite that slow.

  13. Thag Simmons

    Yeah, trying to have both pop culture references and a sliding timescale is like trying to push repelling magnets together.

    1. Clif

      In that you can do it if you’re really determined?

      1. Wizard

        Also in that if your fingers or attention slip for even a second, things tend to go flying apart.

    2. milu

      I mean
      It isn’t much of a sliding timescale if there are no pop cultural references, now is it?

      1. Clif

        Fair point.

  14. DarkoNeko

    It’s true tho

  15. Stephen Bierce

    And while we’ve got an Ethan strip and I’m thinking about it…

    *Scenes of dinosaur-styled motorcars racing around a track*

    ANNOUNCER: This is the best race we’ve had here in years! A full-on charge by the pack now through the chicane to the roundabout before the home stretch and everybody’s bringing 110%…

    ANNOUNCER: The Ankylo BiTurbo and the Tri-Cam Triceratops are taking the fight to the PturboPterasaur and the Raptor Roller…

    ANNOUNCER: The Stego Special and the Top Fuel T-Rex are trying to open a breakaway…

    ANNOUNCER: And at the line—The Champion of the Shortpacked! Five Hundred for Twenty Twenty-Three!—

    The cashiers and sales staff of Shortpacked!, holding their cars’ remote controllers. The kids and parents who’ve been watching the demo are cheering.

    ANNOUNCER (FAZ): —Barbie in the pretty pink Dually Diplodocus.

    DinoBro cars are, it seems, the toy car of the year. I don’t know if they really make RC or slot versions but this is comics!

  16. Suet

    While it looks like neither is ingratiating each other anytime soon…

    I see you, Willis, I see you and that panel 4 5

  17. RacingTurtle

    Uh-oh, the combination of Ethan and Booster is somehow shortpacking the universe. Is this merely a localized phenomenon?

    1. The Wellerman

      More testing and observation is needed to confirm.

      1. Clif

        Quick! Apply for a grant.

    2. davidbreslin101

      SCENE: Booster and Ethan in a store-room, looking at a sign marked “Drama Tag.”
      BOOSTER: I can’t even see what this is supposed to be attached to.

  18. Cattleprod

    Wakanda Forever is still in wide release I can kind of see why Ethan would put off seeing a movie that’s all about processing grief.

    1. Jamie

      Especially when that grief is processed … like that.

  19. Bicycle Bill

    Ah, yes … trying to say “Nocturnal-Echo-Locating-Flying-Mammal-Man” without actually SAYING “Nocturnal-Echo-Locating-Flying-Mammal-Man.”

    1. Clif

      Night-time – acoustical radar – wing flapping while levitating – breast-fed – guy.

      1. milu

        Non-diurnal – sound-oriented – vertically-mobile – hyoid-boned – dude

  20. thakoru

    I do not believe Booster’s claim that they will not talk during the movie.

    1. Wizard

      I question Booster’s physical ability to not talk for the duration of even the shortest of movies.

      1. milu

        Do gifs qualify as very short silent movies

    2. zee

      I mean, super hero movies are meant to be riffed on the whole time. Live action ones at least

  21. Francoinblanco

    The movie is weird. It’s “awkward” to go alone, but it’s impolite to comment on a movie with friends during the screening. Why go in a group?

    1. Taffy

      I’ve always enjoyed in-theater movies more in a group, because you can lean over and mutter jokes during the loud parts. You also get to be part of a crowd that’s all here to see the show, so when you laugh or cheer there’s probably a couple of other people doing the same thing, and it feels more communal.

      Come to think of it, a big crowd of people who are compelled to shut up for most of the event, sitting in comfy chairs, munching on snacks, in the dark… that’s kinda my ideal group setting.

      But also, I saw the Sonic movie 8 days in a row when it came out, and only 2 of those viewings were with other people. The 6 times I saw it alone before work, it was a much more personal, meditative experience because I’d already seen it and knew what was happening, so I could tune in and out at my leisure and use the time in a way that was entirely my own without the possibility of other people I knew interrupting me with some random personal drama I couldn’t care less about but would have been obligated to engage with.

      1. Rose by Any Other Name

        … sorry, I’m stuck on ‘saw the Sonic movie 8 days in a row’.

        Why?
        Even if you liked it… 8 days in a row? I don’t think I could watch my favorite movie 8 days in a row.

        1. Taffy

          I was under a lot of completely unnecessary stress at the time and it was a pretty good movie, so I had an excuse to leave “for work” early and just Exist on my own terms for a couple hours before my shift. More about being unreachable than the movie itself, if I’m being entirely honest.

    2. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      Because when you go alone you are existing for yourself, instead of existing for someone else’s benefit.

    3. Clif

      Because I don’t have friends who are that polite.

    4. milu

      I go to the cinema alone most times. I like to sit all the way to the front of the room and most people hate that, so when i go with people usually we don’t even sit together lol.
      What i do enjoy about going with a friend (or friends) is we get to discuss the movie afterwards =)

    5. JBento

      Not ONLY do I have no issue in going to the movies alone, I make sure to go to showings that have the biggest chance of having as few other people in the room as possible, so that I don’t have to fight off the urge to strangle whichever fucker has decided to play games on their phone with the sound turned up during it.

      1. Taffy

        Don’t fight that urge. Employees at most places aren’t allowed to confront people anymore, so they’ll only ask the person nicely, which is never going to work. Take matters into your own hands and beat up the disruptive jackasses.

        1. thejeff

          Employees at most places aren’t paid enough to confront people. If companies want security, hire security people, don’t task the minimum wage teenager with throwing people out.

        2. Taffy

          That too. Or let the other patrons do it for free.

      2. Mark

        Egad, I think the last time I went to a theater, “playing games on your phone” was not yet a thing.

        1. Opus the Poet

          I think the last time I actually went to a theater How to Train Your Dragon 2 was playing which was 2014 according to Google, which coincides with how the grandson was behaving after the movie when he was tired and hungry. He was little then.

  22. june gloom

    He could just as easily have said “there’s a couple of superhero movies we could pick from” because there’s always like three in theaters at any one time. (I’m actually sick of the genre because of the oversaturation.)

    1. Belegcam

      Ironically, I went to check and as of today, there were none at my local megaplex.

      1. Clif

        Here in the Metaverse we call that a defective megaplex.

      2. june gloom

        Obviously I’m being hyperbolic. Just saying there’s been a lot and I don’t think it’s a good thing, as much as I adore the new Batman movie.

    2. davidbreslin101

      Right up until the Plague Year, I was avoiding the MCU stuff because it felt like too much of a time committment to watch a series od 20-odd films.

      1. Clif

        When you retire you can subscribe to Disney, binge-watch them all, and then cancel your subscription.

  23. Mr. Random

    Hold on, Kraven’s getting a movie?

  24. BBCC

    Ahhhh friendship.

    So how do you guys handle pop culture references in your work?

    1. Taffy

      I always make sure they’re from a certain amount of time before I make the thing. Nobody’s gonna bat an eye if I put a mute, blonde, green-clad swordsman in my game because nobody’s alive right now who was born before the first Zelda game came out. Long-running series are perfect for it, whereas a current meme is only gonna be interesting for a month or two.

      1. Thag Simmons

        It’s always easier to do commentary on things where the ink is dry

      2. Mark

        ? Zelda was published in the 80s, while I was introduced to the world in the 50s and my Dad, who lives still, was a teen in the 40s. I’m actually too old to be familiar with that character. In my day, computer-driven games were played on Teletypes. Honestly!

        1. Taffy

          The first game came out in 1886. You’re never too old to be familiar with something.

        2. davidbreslin101

          [Inserts cutting-edge references to Chinese Checkers and Ludo into comics to be down with the kids]

        3. Clif

          Chinese Checkers are neither checkers nor Chinese and Ludo is British Parcheesi.

    2. Axel

      all my works tend to be in a set time, and if they’re not, I tend just to avoid specific references- I don’t usually find it necessary in my writing style to name things like that. (that’s not to disparage those who do, it can be incredibly important to setting or very poignant to know what exact song a character is listening to on repeat, but it’s rarely relevant in my works)

    3. Clif

      Either by ignoring it or writing it in the indeterminate future and making shit up.

      1. milu

        It funny when scifi set in the future wants to reference something current or recent, and they go “grandma once told me that in the before-times they had these things called “records”, she even had me to listen to one that i really liked,” etc ^^

        1. Mark

          Nearly as funny as scifi set in the far future that has secret messages being held in a gadget that reads your fingerprint and spits out a piece of paper.

        2. Clif

          If it doesn’t print out the secret message, how else can you swallow it after reading it?

        3. thejeff

          It’s the old sci-fi with FTL spaceships, but they still whip out slide-rules to do the navigation that I love.
          Makes you wonder what future advances our current ideas have completely overlooked.

  25. DarkoNeko

    Sun went down, i guess the chapter is almost over.

    1. Clif

      Are you talking about our civilization or the comic?

      1. milu

        Hahaha! It’s funny cuz it’s true

    2. Jenniffniff

      The sun’s getting real low.

  26. 3oranges

    And now this comic will be dated as soon as Bing replaces google as the standard. Any year now…

    1. Dara

      Duck Duck Go. 😀

      1. Clif

        Ask Jeaves, the AI.

      2. Needfuldoer

        DuckDuckGo leans on Bing results.

    2. Mark

      AltaVista….

      1. Clif

        Alta Vista never had the personality of Ask Jeves though.

  27. General Tekno

    I reached panel 2 and thought “oh hey, Willis is avoiding dating this comic by not saying WHICH superhero film.”

    Then I reached the last panel and LOST IT at that being the Actual Punchline.

  28. nothri

    Booster dangerously close to having a deadpool epiphany….

    1. Clif

      Are those actually dangerous?

      Asking for the audience.

      1. J.Gawain

        It would depend on what he did with said epiphany. If he went about his day as normal and just winked at the fourth wall occasionally, no. If it sends him into the existential dread of knowing nothing and no one is real, it could be very dangerous.

        1. Clif

          I was thinking more along the lines of taking his epiphany and beating the audience over the head with it.

      2. Taffy

        The medical term is “CHIM”, and the worst that can happen is you could pop out of existence. On the other hand, you could gain console commands and savestates.

        1. Clif

          Console commands would be cool and all, but most days I’d settle for extended play mode.

  29. Keulen

    This isn’t quite breaking the fourth wall yet, but we’re getting kinda close to it with Booster and Ethan here.

    1. Icalasari

      This isn’t even really close. It’s called a lampshade, where characters bring a plot contrivance to the audience’s attention. It’s the most basic form of “leaning” on the fourth wall

      Yes I feel pedantic tonight

      1. Clif

        In the future, everyone will have a copy of ChatGPT that can generate the lyrics to Yes, I Feel Pedantic Tonight.

  30. Queezle

    Did someone lose their lampshade?

    1. Amós Batista

      the lamp is above their head, I guess

  31. Amós Batista

    Alt-text: the cons of having a buffer of this size.
    I imagine Willis, running fixing an entire timeline, because something crazy happened in pop culture or in the world and he doesn’t want to lost the timing of the thing

  32. Lone Duck

    Google is eternal, nations will rise and crumbles, space colonies will flourish and dwindle, but Google will never stop searching. Don’t ask what they are searching for, that way leads to madness.

    1. Mark

      There is a theory which says that, if they ever find it, it will be taken away and replaced by something even more bizarrely inexplicable.

      There is another theory which says this has already happened.

      1. Clif

        I thought that was what happened everytime the SEOs found what they were searching for.

  33. Sombrero

    The only thing I miss in this strip is a reference to Meta.

    1. Clif

      It was implicit. A Meta-phor if you like.

  34. Needfuldoer

    Booster’s genre-savvy.

  35. Hotel Papa

    Take that, 4th wall.

  36. Amelie Wikström

    In my mind, they’re going to see James Gunn’s “Super”

  37. ValdVin

    Nobody in this strip searches on Prodigy anymore?

    1. Clif

      I participated in the interactive mysteries on Prodigy, but I don’t recall searching.

      But it’s been awhile.

    2. Needfuldoer

      We never had any of those fancy online services like AOL or CompuServe. We had the number to the modem pool at my dad’s work and crawled the web at 9600 baud. (Apparently this call cost 10 cents a minute because it was long-distance.) Then in the late 90s we made do with the “10 hours free per month” NetZero before finally getting 1.5 meg DSL in 2003. That “was good enough” until I put together a business case that paying for analog basic cable, a POTS line, and DSL cost more than twice as many channels, phone service, and 50 meg Internet from the fiber company. This was 2011.

      It was about being cheap the whole time.

  38. Zee

    The title attribute on this image has done more promotion for “Kraven The Hunter” than Sony.

  39. Adept

    This one was kind of painful.

  40. wakeangel2001

    at the time of posting Wakanda Forever is still in theaters, at least AMC, but you’d hardly call it the “new” superhero movie at this point

  41. Juanoku

    And they’re under a street lamp
    Can’t tell if that was on purpose or if I’ve gone insane

    1. Clif

      it’s logically possible that both could be true.

  42. Alex

    I (friend) ship it.

    1. The Wellerman

      XD

  43. Rabisch

    This looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship. If Booster is able to not fall asleep during the movie… Good for Ethan and let’s hope this will help Booster with Amber.

  44. Taffy

    Since people are mentioning obsolete websites and computer programs (they used to be called programs, not apps), I’ll offer that in one of my grade schools, we had a computer lab and designated Computer class period. All we were allowed to do was go on Yahooligans or chat with Bonzi Buddy. It was a weird time.

  45. Pergola

    This looks delicious! How did you know I was hungry?

    1. The Wellerman

      I’m hungry for action too LOL XD

  46. bcb

    Oh my Cheese I love meta jokes like this!

  47. Hinoron

    Also avoids a passionate yet ultimately irrelevant 100-post argument between “True fans” of whichever superhero movie they like best, or MCU vs DCU, or movie-verse vs comic-verse, etc, etc. ^_^

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