this picture will never not be funny
just the absurdity of donald duck putting out that statement (which even makes some sense and fits donald’s overall depressed mood) and mickey mouse being the sly one and contradicting donald, coming out with the upper hand from the argument, is just so amusing.
Ah, then I see my point of confusion: I do not see “nothing matters” as a fundamentally undesirable position (actually kind of the reverse), so to me Donald’s statement does not read as despare at all, it just reads as a neutral explanation of his stance on it. As such, Mickey’s statement doesn’t read to me as absurdist reassurance, rather, Donald’s reads more as something an absurdist might say and Mickey’s response reads more as “how dare you believe that, that idea must be somehow made false even if it is true and I wish to use violence to bring that about”
Yeah, it’s all in the facial expressions. The duck is unhappy about there being no intrinsic value, because he wants the universe to tell him what to value. He’s got that kind of authoritarian mindset where you want to be ruled by a big strong leader who tells you what to think and what to value. Which most people do! Most people believe in a higher authority, even if it be mother nature or the universe. You and Me, the kind of creatures who want to be our own masters and would rebel even against the universe itself, are a rare kind. Most have to be talked into independence.