by thaumasiotes | 2025-12-08 15:28:37+00:00
If you want to see how well text generation works on unrehearsed questions, you can ask about what happens in a comic strip.

I found commentary about searching Google for "dark legacy comics who wants some bamboo", and posted results for that search on HN in response to a comment saying "I work at Google on the 'AI Mode' search option, check it out!" ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45609275 )

And... a few days later, Google stopped automatically including an AI overview when you made that specific search.

But it turns out there are other comics on the internet. So just now I searched for "YAFGC comic 2230" (without the quotes). This is actually a search that makes a lot of sense, because the archive page for the comic is broken and it's impossible to guess the URL of a comic if all you know is the number.

So the goal here is really to find a link to comic 2230. But here's what the AI overview provides:

----- Italics represent original bolding -----

YAFGC comic #2230, titled "You Want It When?", was published on July 17, 2012.

The single-panel comic depicts a conversation at a blacksmith's shop, featuring characters Glon Smitharm/Bloodhand and the Cyclops Bros. The dialogue centers on the unrealistic expectations for custom-made magical items:

- Glon (a half-orc) asks the cyclopes if they can forge a new weapon for him.

- The Cyclops Bros reply with questions about the desired properties of the item (e.g., "enchanted," "plus three") and the required timeframe.

- Glon gives a deadline of "Tuesday," leading the cyclopes to express disbelief at the short notice for such a powerful item.

You can view the comic directly on the official website via this link:

- YAFGC Comic 2230: You Want It When?

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(It may look like I've left out a link at the end. That is not the case. The answer ends by saying "you can view the comic directly via this link", in reference to some bold text that includes no link.)

However, I have left out a link from near the beginning. The sentence "The dialogue centers on the unrealistic expectations for custom-made magical items:" is accompanied by a citation to the URL https://www.yafgc.net/comic/2030-insidiously-involved/ , which is a comic that does feature Glon Smitharm/Bloodhand and Ray the Cyclops, but otherwise does not match the description and which is comic 2030 ("Insidiously Involved"), not comic 2230.

The supporting links also include a link to comic 2200 (for no good reason), and that's close enough to 2230 that I was able to navigate there manually. Here it is: https://www.yafgc.net/comic/2230-clover-nabs-her-a-goldie/

You might notice that the AI overview got the link, the date, the title, the appearing characters, the theme, and the dialog wrong.

----- postscript -----

As a bonus comic search, searching for "wow dark legacy 500" got this response from Google's AI Overview:

> Dark Legacy Comic #500 is titled "The Game," a single-panel comic released on June 18, 2015. It features the main characters sitting around a table playing a physical board game, with Keydar remarking that the in-game action has gotten "so realistic lately."

> You can view the comic and its commentary on the official Dark Legacy Comics website. [link]

Compare https://darklegacycomics.com/500 .

That [link] following "the official Dark Legacy Comics website" goes to https://wowwiki-archive.fandom.com/wiki/Dark_Legacy_Comics , by the way.