The Square Comics take the advice everyone loves to repeat and flip it into punchlines you won’t see coming. Each four-panel strip stars a square-headed guy with spiky black hair who keeps trusting motivational quotes, and keeps getting burned.
Work hard? Someone else gets the promotion. Light at the end of the tunnel? It’s on fire. Ask the universe for help? It answers, just never the way you hoped.
The art is simple, the timing is sharp, and the jokes about work, money, adulting and happiness land uncomfortably close to home. Here are 20 of the funniest strips from The Square Comics.
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20 of the Best Comics From The Square Comics
1. What’s My Life’s Purpose?
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Our square-headed hero asks the universe what his life’s purpose is. After a long, dramatic pause, the cloud spells out the answer in giant letters: provide stakeholder value.
2. Finally, I’m an Adult
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He celebrates becoming an adult and runs toward the door of grown-up freedom. On the other side waits a sky full of breakdowns, anxiety, existential dread and work.
3. Life Is About the Journey
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Life is about the journey, not the destination, the saying goes. Someone else gets a road lined with flowers and butterflies, while his path to the same flag is completely on fire.
4. Other People’s Kids vs. My Favorite People’s Kids
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A screaming stranger’s baby? Annoying. A screaming baby that belongs to his favorite people? Suddenly the most precious thing in the world. Every honest aunt and uncle will feel this one.
5. The Universe Grants a House
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He asks the universe for a house of his own, and the cloud happily agrees. The final panel shows the only property many people can afford these days: a small plot with a gravestone.
6. They’re Still Your Parents
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He vents about his toxic parents to a friend who grew up with healthy ones. Her well-meaning reply that they’re still his parents earns one of the most relatable glares in comics.
7. I Feel Happy… Wait
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For once, he’s holding a little ball of joy and feeling genuinely happy. Then he realizes he isn’t used to the feeling, and self-sabotage takes over in the final panel.
8. There’s a Hole in My Heart
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He discovers a hole in his heart and gets to work on a quick fix. The repair is a patch labeled alcohol, held on with tape. It’s a dark, sharp joke about coping the wrong way.
9. I Wish to Find Love
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He asks the universe for someone kind and loving. The cloud delivers, just not the way he pictured it: a happy little dog. Honestly, the universe got this one right.
10. Be Content
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A cheerful friend tells him you don’t need much to be happy. The last panel reveals she’s giving that advice from the top of a mountain of cash.
11. More Wants
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He finally reaches the top of the hill and gets exactly what he wanted. The happiness lasts one panel before a whole mountain range of new wants appears behind him.
12. Light at the End of the Tunnel
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Exhausted, he keeps climbing because there’s light at the end of the tunnel. He reaches the top, and the light turns out to be a wall of flames.
13. The Fastest Way to Kill Motivation
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He’s happily holding his desire to do things. Then someone tells him to do those exact things, and his motivation shatters into pieces on the spot.
14. The Portable Laptop
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A laptop is made to be portable and easy to use anywhere. In real life, it lives on a desk forever, plugged into two monitors, a keyboard and a mouse.
15. Work Hard and You’ll Be Rewarded
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He grinds away at his laptop, dreaming of the promotion he’s earned. The promotion finally arrives and goes straight to the boss’s friend. It’s office politics in four panels.
16. Working Gives You Money
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Working is great because it gives you money, he says with a smile. Then a giant monster labeled bills swallows the whole paycheck and leaves him holding a crumb.
17. Study Hard, Work Hard
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Study hard, work hard, and one day you’ll have… an existential crisis. The setup sounds like classic career advice, and the payoff is painfully honest.
18. When One Door Closes
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When one door closes, another opens, he’s told. He gets excited, rushes over and finds the new door leads straight into a wall of fire.
19. Exercise Extends Your Lifespan
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Exercise helps you live longer, which sounds great until he sees the chart. The longer his lifespan gets, the higher the cost of living climbs.
20. You Should Have Kids
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He is literally falling to pieces, barely holding it together. An older relative has the perfect solution, which she announces with sparkles: he should have kids.
