At Least The Fruit Subscription Services Run On Time

August 28th, 2025 Barry Posted in Barry's favorites | No Comments »

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels. Each is a different scene, but they all focus on the same character, an ordinary-looking white guy with glasses, wearing a polo shirt. I’ll call him “Glasses.”

PANEL 1

Glasses is walking in a city as he reads his phone. In the background, across the street, we see a group of protestors with signs saying “Stop It!” and “Enough Already!”

GLASSES (thought): Bills, bills… Oh, well, whatcha gonna do?

PANEL 2

Glasses is sitting on a bench at a bus stop, still reading his phone. There are a couple of sleeper tents on the sidewalk.

GLASSES (thought): Oh, wow, the news is awful… We really are descending into fascism.

PANEL 3

Glasses is stepping off a bus, while still staring at the phone in his hand. In the foreground, a couple of men wearing backwards baseball bats, their faces hidden by balaclavas, are wrestling a woman into submission.

GLASSES (thought): I should put my phone away… Can’t lose another day to doomscrolling.

PANEL 4

Glasses, now in sweatpants, is on a sofa in his living room, still reading his phone. Through a window behind him, we can see masked soldiers marching by.

GLASSES (thought): Should I join a fruit subscription service?

—

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

“Chicken fat” is moribund cartoonists’ lingo for unimportant but hopefully amusing details slipped into a comic.

PANEL 1 – The protest signs are ridiculously vague: “Stop it” and “I object” and “enough already!” The protestors include a man with a crescent moon for a head, Jezanna from the comic strip “Dykes to Watch Out For,” and Wendel from the comic strip “Wendel.” There’s an evil bunny glaring out of the sewer.

PANEL 2 – There’s a man with a rifle in a window on a building. A poster on the wall says “Jesus wants you to be nice – by reporting illegals to ICE.” The illustration shows a smiling teddy bear with a halo crucified on a cross.

A newspaper, “The Daily Weekly,” is lying on the sidewalk. The main headline says “President’s Birthday Declared a Holiday,” with a subheadline saying “Real Americans are thrilled.” Another headline says “Tiny Headline Contains No Real Info But Does Fill In Blank Space,” and the last headline says “Cartoonists go on Strike: No One Notices.”

PANEL 3 – The woman being kidnapped by ICE is wearing a “Captain Hammer” t-shirt, a reference to “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.”

PANEL 4 – There are portraits on the wall of the main characters of Asterios Polyp and Gasoline Alley. A book on a table is entitled “Book You Still Haven’t Got Around to Reading Volume 1.” A second book is entitled “Book Volume 8. Admit It, You’ll Never Read This.” A third book, in the background, says “it’s so weird that people actually read this very tiny print” on the cover.

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