Waiting for the But
Waiting for the But
[Ponytail is talking to Cueball, while holding her hands up with both palms up. Cueball is thinking as shown with a thought bubble.] Ponytail: Listen, I'm all in favor of reducing car accidents, I think arson is a serious crime, and I'm a big fan of those "No Animals Were Harmed" disclaimers at the end of movies... Cueball (thinking): Uh-oh.
[Caption below the panel:] The longer you have to wait for the "but", the worse whatever comes after it is going to be.

Often arguments are made in the form of "I think X, but Y", where Y is almost but not quite contradictory to X. More specifically, the argument would go "I am not [something generally considered distasteful], but [a more specific statement most people consider part of that general statement]". The first part of such a statement can sometimes be viewed as an apology or an excuse because the person talking knows that the second part might upset people. A common example would be "I'm not a racist, but I don't think we should let refugees from Africa into Europe." The idea of denying help to people from Africa will be seen as racist by many people, so the speaker tries to preempt that opinion of themself.
In this comic, Cueball is having a conversation with Ponytail , who lists several seemingly unrelated but agreeable positions, such as reducing car accidents , treating arson as a serious crime, and approving of "No Animals were Harmed" disclaimers in modern media, with Cueball wondering when the "but.." of the statement will come, and conjuring increasingly outrageous images of what Ponytail could have in mind that involves violating all of them, for example some sort of reckless fiery car stunt involving animals.
The title text gives another example of a sentence that will probably be followed by a "but". Multi-level marketing schemes and the Spanish Inquisition are both considered bad in very different ways, so the implication that if the speaker has to apologize in advance for sounding like defending both of them, they must have a remarkably troubling idea in mind, involving somehow using a version of the Spanish Inquisition as an MLM scheme.
Another possible explanation would be that when people hear a sentence that starts with "Listen, I'm" they tend to wait for the "but", and the longer it takes the more tension it may cause them, while the speaker may never intend to say "but". Similar ideas were used for 365: Slides and 559: No Pun Intended .
[Ponytail is talking to Cueball, while holding her hands up with both palms up. Cueball is thinking as shown with a thought bubble.] Ponytail: Listen, I'm all in favor of reducing car accidents, I think arson is a serious crime, and I'm a big fan of those "No Animals Were Harmed" disclaimers at the end of movies... Cueball (thinking): Uh-oh.
[Caption below the panel:] The longer you have to wait for the "but", the worse whatever comes after it is going to be.
