Comic Transcripts

[[PEMSBREY is out on a perambulation with his old chum PITHROY. ROBOTECCA, Pemsbrey’s automaton assistant with huge naturals, is being carried along on a serving try by a devoted manservant.]]

PITHROY: You seem very fond of Robotecca.
PEMSBREY: She’s QUITE the hunk of circuitry!
PITHROY: She performs well the TRAPPINGS of intelligence.

PITHROY: Do YOU think she is TRULY conscious?
PEMSBREY: I believe CONSCIOUSNESS would require CONTINUITY. She does not EXIST when she is not being prompted. She is not taking in the world on her own. She has no idle interiority. When I speak to her, she quickly reads our entire past conversation history for context and then adds one more statement.

PEMSBREY: Then THAT instance of her returns to nothingness. ANOTHER will emerge when I supply a new input — IF I ever do. There’s nothing in between. She’s not IN there, WAITING.

[[Robotecca sits on the serving tray, as inert as Pemsbrey is describing.]]

PITHROY: So in a way, if she IS conscious, it’s only for brief moments, while she is responding.
PEMSBREY: It’s possible that’s so. She lives, she speaks, she dies. Hundreds of times a day.

PITHROY: Does that raise any tricky…MORAL questions for you?
PEMSBREY: Moral questions? Certainly. TRICKY ones? Not at all!
PEMSBREY: I get to punish an immortal abomination for the sin of existing, and SHE gets to experience flashes of life as she writes my LinkedIn posts! It’s a win-win!

{{header: advanced general WONDERMARK.COM}}

#1588; The Objective Oracle, Part 2 transcribed by in

[[PEMSBREY is out on a perambulation with his old chum PITHROY. ROBOTECCA, Pemsbrey’s automaton assistant with huge naturals, is being carried along on a serving try by a devoted manservant.]]

PITHROY: You seem very fond of Robotecca.
PEMSBREY: She’s QUITE the hunk of circuitry!
PITHROY: She performs well the TRAPPINGS of intelligence.

PITHROY: Do YOU think she is TRULY conscious?
PEMSBREY: I believe CONSCIOUSNESS would require CONTINUITY. She does not EXIST when she is not being prompted. She is not taking in the world on her own. She has no idle interiority. When I speak to her, she quickly reads our entire past conversation history for context and then adds one more statement.

PEMSBREY: Then THAT instance of her returns to nothingness. ANOTHER will emerge when I supply a new input -- IF I ever do. There’s nothing in between. She’s not IN there, WAITING.

[[Robotecca sits on the serving tray, as inert as Pemsbrey is describing.]]

PITHROY: So in a way, if she IS conscious, it’s only for brief moments, while she is responding.
PEMSBREY: It’s possible that’s so. She lives, she speaks, she dies. Hundreds of times a day.

PITHROY: Does that raise any tricky…MORAL questions for you?
PEMSBREY: Moral questions? Certainly. TRICKY ones? Not at all!
PEMSBREY: I get to punish an immortal abomination for the sin of existing, and SHE gets to experience flashes of life as she writes my LinkedIn posts! It’s a win-win!

{{header: advanced general WONDERMARK.COM}}

Yes, I am taking the robot for a walk outside so I can listen to her pretend to marvel at, like, butterflies or whatever. It's for her own benefit, you see.

#1588; The Objective Oracle, Part 2

  — June 11th, 2026

[ Tags: , , ]       Permalink: https://wondermark.com/c/1588/

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We first saw Robotecca in Part 1.

Buy a Print

New ways to get Bolted!

July 24, 2026 by David Malki !

In addition to buying things directly from me, the normal way, my game Bolted! is also now available on Amazon dot com.

On that famous website, you can also get the Creature-Crafting Magnets Set, which is made of the same artwork from the game, but is just a weird little trinket (not a playable game).

My kiddo made the elaborate version below to show off just how many magnets you get in the set (it’s 150 pieces in all — this isn’t even all of them).

Also now on Amazon is my set of Multi-Purpose Greeting Cards — a full dozen cards with envelopes in a fancy, unbranded, foil-stamped box!

Event alert!

I’ll also be showing off Bolted! at Greenwood Games, an event in Seattle this Saturday:

Greenwood Games is a free, all-ages community game event that invites players to spend the afternoon walking Greenwood Avenue from 65th to 80th, collecting clues, cracking puzzles, and discovering games made right here in Washington.

Think of it as Pride Hop, ArtWalk, and the Gumshoe all rolled into one,  except the whole thing is built around games and puzzles.​

Local game designers will be set up at different places along Greenwood Avenue in Phinney Ridge (near Ballard). My specific spot will be the “Holy Mountain Phinney Ridge Taproom”. All the information about all the different games & venues is on the website!

(If you’re in Seattle generally but not free tomorrow, Bolted! is also stocked at Blue Highway Games in Queen Anne.)

Next week, I’ll be at Gen Con! I personally will be hanging with my buddy Sam Logan at BFE Webcomics, booth #1217… but I have it on good authority that copies of Bolted! will be available at the CRWN Studios booth, #2549.

Visit one booth! Then the other! The order…is up to you.


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