replicant-2
Explanation
This comic riffs on the Blade Runner "replicant" concept -- artificial beings that are nearly indistinguishable from humans -- but applies it to the world of romance novels.
A character in what appears to be a Blade Runner-style interrogation says: "I can't tell which of us is the replicant. Maybe it's the real Steve, or maybe you're something else entirely -- you could say something only a..." The implication is that they're about to propose a test to distinguish human from replicant, similar to the Voight-Kampff test from Blade Runner.
But the "tell" turns out to be genre fiction preferences: the supposed replicant is accused of being into "those trashy generic romance novels." The replicant's response is a Java-style error message: "I LOVE Exception: NullPointerException at Election.java:42" -- their programming literally crashes when trying to express genuine romantic feeling, spitting out a software stack trace instead.
The other character says "I knew it," and the replicant responds with "I LOVE YOU TOO, Gabbb..." -- glitching out mid-sentence.
The humor works on several levels: it parodies the Blade Runner replicant test by making the distinguishing factor something trivially human (enjoying trashy romance novels rather than deep existential responses), and then confirms the android nature through a perfectly chosen programming error -- a NullPointerException, which occurs when a program tries to reference something that doesn't exist, implying the replicant literally has no capacity for the romantic love it's trying to express. The Java error is a specific, nerdy touch that makes the glitch feel authentic rather than generic.