Lio by Mark Tatulli for December 17, 2019

“Depends on what the definition of “is” is."

Did Calvin not try a schtick of a letter to Santa Claus once?

If Lio is going to be honest, it’ll be a tough Christmas.

Santa sees a letter from Liö and tosses it into the bin labelled ‘BS’.

So Lio didn’t finish the letter he started on Sunday?

Lio has been very good (at entertaining me) this year.

Dear Santa, define “good”.

Good? Lio is a great kid!

“Dear Santa. I’m sorry my marauder robot destroyed your workshop and killed all your elves. But it’s not like you really exist anyway.” (crumple crumple…)

Lio just realized how stupid it is to justify your own bad behavior by comparing them to the evil actions of anyone else. It’s still unacceptable to the higher authority.

This is the first strip I have seen which is based on rejecting an idea for a comic strip.

Very hard to classify states as “good”, rogue or otherwise. They monopolize violence, label citizens as either bad or outstanding (nothing in between), and everyone ends up a little bit poorer for its maintenance.

Santa already knows. And Liō will like that he uses the celestial eyes of a humanoid abomination to do so. “Varuna” trapped in the ocean till the day the stars will be in the right position and he is freed from his prison. Varuna’s celestial eyes spy out everyone and read them as good or evil. In the past Varuna would have smited those read as evil. But not now. Kris Kringle just uses it for identification of not just the children, but ever human and other intelligent beings that live on it. (Nothing is hidden from those eyes right down to the soul.)

“Dear Santa, I have been EXTREMELY good this year compared to the president of the United States…”

But Lio! That was a promising start, I think. I bet that at the least Santa would get a small chuckle out of it….

“When I’m good, I’m very, very good, but when I’m bad I’m better!” …………..Mae West