new-valentines
Explanation
The Joke
The comic, titled "New Directions for Valentine's Day," proposes three absurd categories of Valentine's Day cards:
Surprising Subject Matter: A piece of bread (a loaf) tells another loaf "I would loaf to fuck you," while a cow card reads "I still love you but I have come to realize that I'm udderly gay" -- combining typical Valentine's puns with unexpectedly frank sexual content and a coming-out announcement.
Gentle Reminders: A coffee cup says "I like you a latte but you've bean late on child support for 3 months now!" and a glass of milk tells someone "You still owe me money. And your heart or whatever. Seriously though." -- using the Valentine's card format to deliver uncomfortable legal and financial demands.
Confusion: A bee tells someone "You arrr the one for me" (using a pirate phrase instead of a bee pun), and a cow says "I would loaf to fuck you" (using the bread pun from the first card on the wrong animal).
The Humor
The comic mocks the formulaic nature of Valentine's Day cards, which rely heavily on cutesy animal characters and food-based puns. By escalating through three increasingly unhinged categories, Weinersmith shows how absurd the genre already is -- and how little separates a standard punny Valentine from something deeply inappropriate. The "Gentle Reminders" section is particularly funny because it uses the saccharine card format to deliver genuinely threatening messages about unpaid debts and child support, highlighting the contrast between the soft visual presentation and harsh content. The "Confusion" section takes it further by deliberately mismatching the puns with the wrong characters, suggesting the card industry has become so formulaic that nobody even notices which pun goes with which animal.