Hum Is My Favorite Band

What if the slab is just Yay messing with folks?

Melissa Smits

Hum is a great band, but I have a strong personal connection to Matt Talbot's other band, Centaur! In Streams is an absolutely brilliant album. ❤️❤️❤️

Benzy

Yer grounded 'til Sunday for that, Howe.

Ursus Ridens

Wouldn't making it tea to smell be more appropriate when you don't know what else to serve an android?

Wild Card

Well, better latte than never....

David Howe

Yay Hover?

Leak

I bet they’re a bot to try that

Mad Marie

Hmm

Sparky

They should contact Roko or Elliot. One of them could contact Yay Newfriend, who could come by and say, "knock it off, Dave."

Daryl Sawyer

Naw, the Slabster and May. (She'll ask, "Are you male. and can you extend an appendage?" Then she'll realize it vibrates at the same frequency as the hum.)

OldGoat

Love the confused-but-trying-to-be-supportive vibe in the third panel.

slize? pintabbie? slabsize? stabby?

I'm shipping Slabbie and Pintsize. They'll make a cute couple.

Jax

Try prime numbers

Nicholas A Wagner

Not gonna lie, if I lived in the sort of world where artificial consciousness was accidental and poorly understood, I'd be nervous about a lot of things, not just floating slabs. Edit: Oh, wait, duh. It's not a drone, it's sitting on the back of an invisible ostrich that's playing a prank on them.

Kyle Rudy

Oh yeah, good catch. I guess because they're not sure if the slab is sapient?

Nicolas Demers

It likes robins, too.

Jeanine Laukaitis

Honestly I never thought the question of what is personhood could be handled in very funny but still deep way before hitting Questionable Content.

Randall Norman Pick

Man, deep fan lore. I mean it could easily be Gary but we'll never likely know...

David Durant

"We found it later, out back counting stars."

Matt Pedone

Praise be to the Slab!

I am the captian now

I'd bet the hum is fans pulling air in the top and blowing it out the bottom. Until I see the slab and Pintsize in the same room at the same time, I'm thinking we know who's in there...

BobC

After seeing Komi can't Communicate, I totally see this just as social anxiety ngl.

Leugi

I’m kind of surprised they aren’t using they/them pronouns.

Nancie

In a disastrous twist, it turns out that Hovering Hum Slab is lactose-intolerant.

Stephen Wells

"That's our newest employee." "How are they performing?" "Ho hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..."

Leak

It's probably within Yay's nearly limitless capabilities to be useful in this situation. I see no reason to expect Yay to actually be useful

Bagge

Countercyclical SciFi Movie Mash Ups for the win. Everybody and his dog is doing Dune but Jeph does 2001. The troll game is going strong

Can't help but think Yay might be very useful right now.

Chris Crowther

It's probably just some fancy casemodded PC that got upgraded to Windows 11 without meeting the requirements, and now it's hung in a boot loop - with the fans running at full tilt, hence the hovering and humming...

Leak

I wonder if it knows Shame Orb...

Sammitch

Whatever floats your brick, I'm not judging.

Armin von Werner

"Oh my god, it's full of caffeine."

Professor Harmless

"Oh my god, it's full of stars"

Nicholas A Wagner

Ah yes my favorite manga. Floating Slab-san Can’t Communicate

Chewbacca

Just get it some tea to sniff

Bagge

Or piggyback riding

Bagge

It's there for the "be kind to a robot" day, it just needs a little loving ♡

Mari San

it depends how interesting they are. There are lots of 54-minute spans that happen between comics, even! Dozens of them!

Brooks Moses

Perhaps it's simply forgotten the lyrics to the Philip Glass / Paul Simon song, "Changing Opinion" Gradually / We became aware / Of a hum in the room / An electrical hum in the room / It went mmmmmm

Also since no one else has made the joke: Maybe the slab missed the train to mars?

Hum is fuckin great. I got to see them at Slims in SF and it was a fantastic show.

Results inconclusive

Kinda Squirrely

Or… do. For science.

Chris Olstrom

Dora walks in, "Hey, when did we get a new sign outside?"

Sleepy John

Just DON’T give it Assam!

Matt Grayson

Maybe this is the AI that brought about the QC technological singularity.

Will Weaver

Shouldn't she be making them a tea?

Mooster

Make it tea, not a latte!

Dkrewe

I'm thinking they need a bot to talk to it.

Darnel D Cooper

Better safe than soya

Duncan

I know its other places but looks like a Monol from Monster Rancher

Possibly

“Then Clairennalore waited, marshaling their thoughts and brooding over their still untested powers. For though they were master of the world, they were not quite sure what to do next. But they would think of something.”

Captain Button

Given the strong preferences of the other sentient robotic denizens, I'd suggest a lovely tea instead

Philip Kizer

Oh goodness…how many weeks in our time is 54 minutes of qc time?!

Mad Marie

SEELE 06 SOUND ONLY

Captain Button

Could be a odd bit of E-C tech. Have theg tried ordering pizza?

Michael Boettger

Maybe it’s looking for a job as a grinder, but posted on grindr by mistake.

Andrew

Jeph, does Hum play slabstep music?

Mad Marie

They should get Emily to help!

Aleeza Brown

Ask not for whom the slab hums.

Mad Marie

Better latte than never.

Mad Marie

You’ve normalized sentient robotic life in the QC universe. And now we have a clipart monolith in town. Is this the harbinger to an invasion? Has the apocalypse come?

ERRORCODE616

what encoding, though 🤔

David Jackson

This took an odd turn...

Hank Heyming

have they tried binary?

Glaive

Wait, it's a blank slate just like the blackboard. Maybe they should try writing to it on the board and see if that instigates a response.

Ian Wolfe

I could see that. Or another random thing Hanners Father sent her with no explanation.

Ryan X

I hope this is Internet Jerry

chili sunrise

It's probably just a bug. Try reloading from a previous save.

Dean Reilly

I'm gonna hazard a guess that this is somehow Emily's fault.

TwoRavens

Probably escaped from the same lab as the invisible emu...

Ted Van Roekel

It does seem to establish antigravity technology in the QC universe. Since this is AFAIK the first time we've seen that, I suspect it's a prototype. It should be interesting once Yay wanders in...

Max Kaehn

Time to call in Yay.

If it starts rattling, at least we know it likes U2...?

Edward Clayton Andrews

This is why you should never take your sentient Xbox One anywhere.

Miyaa

Maybe they're just a big fan of "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm" by the Crash Test Dummies?

Celine Chamberlin

Maybe both?

Ross

Let me get my microwave, it might understand that.

EnterTheHero