Comic: Buddy's Barbecue (Patreon)

in which Buddy meets Sunny's new girlfriend, Skye, and opinions are shared

y'know, I didn't originally set out to make Sunny's parents baby boomers (they were both born in the early 1960s), but I looked it up and to my surprise, their birth years place them as late boomers, not generation Xers like I thought. They've boomer'ed their way into my heart~

Both of Sunny's parents are reasonably friendly to Skye, but privately Biscuit and Buddy have quite a few issues with this strange girl their precious son has elected to date. Buddy sees Skye (who is a social media writer and activist) as distressingly opinionated and rather headstrong. Skye would argue that she's not "too opinionated", just, yanno, reasonably concerned with making the world a better place- a concept that is threatening to an old dog like Bud, as he's quite comfortable with the status quo and fears change. What's a young pup like her know about runnin' a company, anyhow? Bud's been in the business for thirty years!! And there's no harm in plastic chew toys, dang it, Buddy was raised with lead paint and drinkin' from the hose and he turned out just fine! Kids today are just plain soft! >:O

Sunny, meanwhile, quite respects Skye's intellect and likes her precisely because she challenges him on shit. He never really questioned the world around him until he met her (and also Bruce), and he has a lot of honest dumb admiration for his girlfriend (and the way she rattles his parents).

...After this barbecue, Buddy will quietly join his wife in giving Sunny "entirely innocent" running updates on that sweet mild-mannered labrador girl that lives up the street, in the hopes Sunny will eventually come to his senses and settle down with someone agreeable.

Notes:

-The "pork" Buddy is referring to is lab-grown meat, cultivated from animal cells. No pig people were harmed in the making of that hot dog! (But eating "real" meat remains a pretty debated subject in FB...)

-We can see where the dorky, neater way Sunny dresses around his parents. His mother Biscuit is pretty relentless in trying to slick back his hair and will pull out her puppy dog eyes to get her "handsome pup" into expensive fitted clothes (she ironed them herself, darling!), and Sunny has learned it easier to go with it than try to wear his usual thrift shop fashion.

-Jude may or may not have formed a tiny, innocent crush on Skye, who is too soft and pretty for her own good. Skye probably knows about it and finds it cute (not really the reaction Jude wants but okay), and goes out of her way to befriend this giant awkward wolf among dogs. Eventually Jude will get a grip and their bond becomes sister-like.

-Biscuit is probably in the background sipping a glass of red wine and sighing. Cass is busy documenting how many hot dogs she can cram in her mouth.