Self-reference
Self-reference
[Cueball is standing alone.] Cueball: I promise to never again squeeze humor out of self-reference.
[Beat panel.]
[Cueball is standing alone.] Cueball: God dammit.
Self-reference is a situation where something (a comic, a drawing, a musical work, a novel, a mathematical theorem) refers to itself in some manner. This can be a powerful technique in art, music, mathematics, and computer science (it is the basis of recursion).
In this comic, Cueball promises not to use self-reference for humor, and then realizes after a beat panel that, since this comic is referring to the series of comics he is part of, he is using self-reference, thus breaking his promise.
Without the last panel, this comic wouldn't be funny, and therefore wouldn't break the promise about using self-reference for humor. But with it, and his realization that he is breaking his promise, it does break that promise. (Do you get it?)
The title text is just another humorous self-reference.
Self-references has been used most famously later in 688: Self-Description , but was already used in 6: Irony and also in other comics .
[Cueball is standing alone.] Cueball: I promise to never again squeeze humor out of self-reference.
[Beat panel.]
[Cueball is standing alone.] Cueball: God dammit.