Hum Is My Favorite Band

Melissa Smits

What if the slab is just Yay messing with folks?

Benzy

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. ❤️❤️❤️

Ursus Ridens

Yer grounded 'til Sunday for that, Howe.

Wild Card

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

David Howe

Well, better latte than never....

Leak

Yay Hover?

Mad Marie

I bet they’re a bot to try that

Sparky

Hmm

Daryl Sawyer

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

OldGoat

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.)

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

slize? pintabbie? slabsize? stabby?

Jax

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

Nicholas A Wagner

Try prime numbers

Kyle Rudy

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.

Nicolas Demers

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

Jeanine Laukaitis

It likes robins, too.

Randall Norman Pick

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

David Durant

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

Matt Pedone

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

I am the captian now

Praise be to the Slab!

BobC

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...

Leugi

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

Nancie

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

Stephen Wells

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

Leak

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

Bagge

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

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

Chris Crowther

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

Leak

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...

Sammitch

I wonder if it knows Shame Orb...

Armin von Werner

Whatever floats your brick, I'm not judging.

Professor Harmless

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

Nicholas A Wagner

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

Chewbacca

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

Bagge

Just get it some tea to sniff

Bagge

Or piggyback riding

Mari San

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

Brooks Moses

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

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.

Kinda Squirrely

Results inconclusive

Chris Olstrom

Or… do. For science.

Sleepy John

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

Matt Grayson

Just DON’T give it Assam!

Will Weaver

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

Mooster

Shouldn't she be making them a tea?

Dkrewe

Make it tea, not a latte!

Darnel D Cooper

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

Duncan

Better safe than soya

Possibly

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

Captain Button

“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.”

Philip Kizer

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

Mad Marie

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

Captain Button

SEELE 06 SOUND ONLY

Michael Boettger

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

Andrew

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

Mad Marie

Jeph, does Hum play slabstep music?

Aleeza Brown

They should get Emily to help!

Mad Marie

Ask not for whom the slab hums.

Mad Marie

Better latte than never.

ERRORCODE616

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?

David Jackson

what encoding, though 🤔

Hank Heyming

This took an odd turn...

Glaive

have they tried binary?

Ian Wolfe

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.

Ryan X

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

chili sunrise

I hope this is Internet Jerry

Dean Reilly

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

TwoRavens

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

Ted Van Roekel

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

Max Kaehn

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...

Time to call in Yay.

Edward Clayton Andrews

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

Miyaa

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

Celine Chamberlin

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

Ross

Maybe both?

EnterTheHero

Let me get my microwave, it might understand that.