shining
Explanation
This is a longer-form comic riffing on "The Shining" and modern alienation. A character (resembling Jack Torrance from The Shining) argues that modern humans aren't strange because of their alienation -- rather, the real problem is that modern life is boring. He says he's disconnected from his fellow man not because of existential angst, but because there are games, TV shows, and podcasts that are frankly better company. He then delivers a dramatic monologue about how isolation should make you break into pieces against the world's forces, but he insists he's not broken -- he's a "corroded lump of good." In the final panel, his interlocutor (resembling the bartender ghost from The Shining) apologizes but says he's already moved on. The character thanks him for the "darkest rum available."
The comic plays on the famous isolation themes of Stephen King's "The Shining," but updates them for the modern era. Instead of isolation driving someone mad in a grand, dramatic way, the comic suggests that modern isolation is banal -- people withdraw not because of deep psychological torment, but because streaming content is more enjoyable than human connection. The character's attempt to make his predicament sound dramatic and literary is undercut by the mundane reality. The bartender's indifference in the final panel reinforces that nobody finds this kind of modern ennui particularly compelling or tragic.