I have had a niggling desire to create some more Loaf Dubronovich cartoons but have found new ideas to be illusive, but not completely absent. In my last blog post about Life in the Fast Lane, I showed a cartoon of the same name, and today, you see the feature image cartoon about suffering from allergies, which I created on June 21st.
As part of my cartooning “career” I have been keeping a digital book where I place my cartoons (now numbering 114). Each entry includes a short explanation about the cartoon and where it first appeared. For instance, the write-up for Allergies reads: “Allergies appeared first in the “Cartoon Aid” blog post – June 22, 2026. This cartoon was created when I was thinking about my allergies and how my wife, Denise, has jokingly pointed out on occasion that I should live life in a bubble.” Sweet and simple, but it does the job, I would say.
With my mind mostly drawing a blank, cartoon-wise, I began to wonder what AI might have to offer if I asked it to review my cartoon book and suggest a few new ideas. To proceed, I converted a PDF copy of the book into a Microsoft Word document so CoPilot could be utilized. As you will see below, the translation from PDF was not very good, and the pictures themselves were not visible to CoPilot, although I could see them in the document. While the AI was not able to see the whole document as I had hoped, it did sense what I was up to and offered some new ideas. I don’t want to use any of the ideas as my own, since I did not create them, but I did want to share them because I found some quite funny. You be the judge! Note that it is all text based – no new images were created. Note my personal rating after each joke/cartoon heading
My initial question:
This document is full of typos because it was a PDF opened in word and the OCR didn’t do the best job. While ignoring the typos, review my series of editorial cartoons and see if you can offer a few new cartoon ideas afterward in a similar vein. I am very curious to see how you manage this task that requires analyzing the images and the explanatory text.
CoPilot:
I can do this task well from the explanatory text, but I should be transparent: in the document version I can access here, the actual cartoon images don’t appear to have come through — only the OCR’d captions/descriptions and blank image spaces. So, I can’t visually analyze line work, composition, expressions, staging, or image-specific details unless the images are present/attached.
That said, ignoring the OCR typos as requested, I can still see a strong pattern in the series:
- Loaf as alter ego: self-deprecating, affectionate, often body-aware, but not usually cruel.
- Recurring “Loaf universe”: Little Loaf, Denise/Sally Mander, Loafina, pets, Baba D., clones, and domestic settings.
- Humor modes: puns, literalized idioms, pop-culture riffs, old jokes re-skinned as Loaf cartoons, medical/body-life absurdities, aging, marriage, creativity, food, Canadian prairie language, and “a man trying to preserve dignity while life keeps poking him.”
- Tone: mostly warm, autobiographical, observational, with flashes of mock-grandiosity — Loaf as president, award winner, prophet, captain, record holder, etc.
- Best-fit new ideas would probably work when they combine one everyday irritation with a bigger Loaf-sized metaphor.
Here are some new cartoon ideas in a similar vein:
1. Loaf Support (⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐)
Loaf stands in a clothing store beside a rack labeled “Support Wear.” The salesperson is holding up industrial suspenders with warning stripes.
Caption/dialogue: “These are less ‘fashion accessory’ and more ‘load-bearing infrastructure.’”
2. The Creative Outlet (⭐⭐⭐⭐)
Loaf sits at a desk with a blank page. Above his head is a huge electrical breaker panel labeled “Ideas.” Every switch is off except one marked “Snack.”
Caption: “The creative process was mysterious, but not unpredictable.”
3. Prairie Wind Advisory (⭐⭐⭐⭐)
Loaf is leaning forward into a Saskatchewan wind, perfectly motionless, while Little Loaf hangs horizontally behind him like a flag.
Little Loaf: “Are we walking or parked?”
4. The Modern Cave Artist (⭐⭐⭐⭐)
Loaf stands in front of a cave wall covered with ancient-style handprints, except his prints are made from chip-dust orange fingerprints.
Caption: “Historians later identified this as the Nacho Period.”
5. The Doctor’s Scale 2.0 (⭐⭐⭐)
Loaf steps onto a medical scale connected to a large printer. Instead of a number, it prints a receipt that says, “Please wait while we contact City Engineering.”
Doctor: “Good news. We’ve upgraded from judgmental to municipal.”
6. AI Replacement, Revisited (⭐)
Loaf sits beside a robot cartoonist. The robot has drawn a perfect technical diagram of Loaf but no joke. Loaf has drawn a crooked stick figure and is laughing at himself.
Loaf: “See? It copied the body, but not the damage.”
7. Loaf’s Fitness Tracker (⭐⭐⭐)
Loaf checks his smartwatch after walking from the couch to the fridge. The watch says, “Congratulations! You have completed one pilgrimage.”
Loaf: “Finally, technology understands me.”
8. The Emergency Gotch Drawer (⭐⭐)
Denise opens a drawer labeled “New Gotch — For Suspicious Occasions Only.” Loaf stands nearby looking offended.
Loaf: “A man can’t refresh his inventory without triggering an investigation?”
9. Bubble Life (⭐)
Following your allergies idea: Loaf sits inside a clear bubble in the living room. Denise is outside holding a plate of cold cuts. The cat is trying to sharpen its claws on the bubble.
Loaf: “I admit the air is better, but the catering system needs work.”
10. Life in the Slow Lane (⭐)
Loaf sits in a lawn chair on the shoulder of a road beside a sign: “Slow Lane Ends Never.” Little Loaf is impatiently holding a map.
Loaf: “At my age, arriving is nice, but sitting is underrated.”
11. Shrinkflation: The Loaf Edition (⭐⭐⭐)
Loaf holds up a tiny “family size” bag of chips. The bag is mostly air and has a label: “Now with 30% more disappointment.”
Loaf: “At least my expectations are still full size.”
12. The Man Cave Inspection (⭐)
Denise stands at the entrance of Loaf’s man cave wearing a hard hat and holding a clipboard. The cave contains snacks, tools, unfinished hobbies, and a throne made of old recliners.
Denise: “I’m not saying it’s unsafe. I’m saying the archeologists called first dibs.”
My strongest recommendation: keep leaning into Loaf’s mock-heroic treatment of ordinary indignities. That’s where the series seems most distinctive — turning shopping, doctoring, aging, marriage, food, and creative insecurity into epic little dramas.
If you want, I can also create a more organized “new cartoon concepts” section for the document with titles, setup, dialogue, and why each fits the Loaf style.
Me:
Thanks. It’s too bad you couldn’t see the images themselves, but I did appreciate your new cartoon ideas. Good humor! That is all for now.
CoPilot:
You’re very welcome — and thank you! I’m glad the humor landed.
Even without the images, the explanatory text gave me a strong sense of the Loaf universe and your comic voice: affectionate self-roasting, wordplay, domestic absurdity, aging, food, prairie slang, and Loaf treating ordinary life like an epic personal saga.
If you ever reopen or attach a version where the images come through, I’d be happy to take another pass focused more on the visual storytelling.
***
Well, I must say that I found some of the jokes quite funny, while others not so much. What do you think? Should I give AI a pass and come up with my own material, as per usual. Personally, I think that I should – and will.
Donald B. Cheke – Saskatoon, SK