Is this a cigar which I see before me?

[Zits, August 14, 2026. Click for a larger view.]

It looks a bit like a vaping device, but the puffs and the red suggest a cartoon cigar. At least Walt is setting his bad example outside the house.

Notice the shirt: Bucyrus is a town in Ohio, the Zits home state. There is no Hard Rock Cafe there. Jeremy Duncan has (or recently had) a summer job at Pipkin’s, a Cincinnati grocer. There is an HRC in Cincinnati.

Grandpa’s Cheesebarn, which appeared in a 2020 Zits, is also in Ohio.

*

My son Ben and I have each improved that cigar.

*

August 18: The cigar showed up again today. It turns out that these strips are reruns from August 2015. Were cigars more acceptable then? I don’t think so. But at least Walt is smoking his outside the house.