In the third Minus strip, we see the trappings of consumerism and the responsibility of the true postmodern to redefine her own consumer identity.
The balloonman, in a clear homage to the powerful In Just by E. E. Cummings, is an allusion to the Christian mythological figure of Satan, otherwise known as the greek god Pan, and represents the inherent evil and cupidity of modernity’s approach to capitalism. It is in light of this observation that the true meaning of this strip begins to form.
In the first panel, Minus has, unwittingly, fallen into the consumerist trappings passed down to the Postmodern by the modern world. The modern world believed in the power of institutions–whether corporation or government–to effect the world in a positive way. Postmodernism has disabused itself of that notion, becoming inherently suspicious of conglomerates. The Postmodern, nonetheless, is first a consumer (as is only natural when one comes to see the Self as the determinant of reality) and as such can often fall into the Modernist trappings of materialism which demand implicit trust in the manifestation of Capitalism that is the Seller.
However, the inevitable abuses of that trust that have ultimately led to the Postmodern’s distrust in conglomerates are quickly made apparent to Minus. She has been deceived by the Balloonman, and the product she bought is clearly defective.
This demonstrates the inherent error in the Modernist’s Capitalist-Consumer philosophy which champions the axiom, “Caveat Emptor.” The vile Balloonman has profitted off of the innocence of a child (much like Cummings’s Balloonman) and the child’s only consolation is that she should have been a more discerning consumer.
Minus, however, as our avatar of the postmodern imagination, does not resign herself to be the victim of the Balloonman’s avarice. In Panel 5, she purchases another balloon, as the Balloonman smirks at her foolishness. Two panels later as the intentionally defective balloon once more pops, rather than being disillusioned and downcast by this inevitability, Minus redefines her purchase. Where first she had defined her purchase as the purchase of a product (as Modernism and the Balloonman certainly intended), she has now defined her purchase as an experience; an experience that explicitly includes the sound and sight of a popping balloon. Through this, Minus has redefined herself as a consumer and can truly appreciate her purchase, regardless of the intentions of the Seller.
Through this Minus teaches the necessary differences between the mandated capitalism of modernism and the participatory capitalism of postmodernism. The postmodernist philosophy is far from an optimistic one and does hold it a possibility to fully escape a capitalist economy, as flawed as it may be. Instead, the postmodern imagination allows for changes to be made within the system by the Buyer, regardless of the participation of the Seller. The Seller may have the most malicious of intentions (as the Balloonman surely does), but it is the Buyer who defines herself and her purchase. Through the redefinition of 
her self-identity, she is neither harmed nor hindered by the pernicious intent of the Seller. In this sense, it could be said that she has defeated the Seller, by not allowing his perception of reality to negatively influence her own.
It is in light of this that the remainder of this comic takes a more metaphorical turn. Minus is shown literally destroying the Balloonman’s product through the joy found in redefining her purchase, ecstatically popping the remaining balloons. The devillish Balloonman responds in anger, demonstrating how much of his own self-identity is wrapped in his material possessions.
Finally, this misplaced self-identity begins to manifest itself physically as the Balloonman metamorphoses into a red balloon, the color another clear reference to the Balloonman’s true nature. Minus, by redefining her consumer identity, has championed over the avarice of that villain the Balloonman, and walks away the ultimate victor.
you rock.
Although the entertainment of the idea that this strip is an allegorical reification of the relationship between the consumer and the capitalist agenda is entertaining, I would like to highlight a certain temptation integral to Postmodernist thought. As Postmodernists, we pay proper homage to the power of perception, and notice that what is true in the eyes of some may not hold true in the eyes of others. Unfortunately, our golden apple is the tendency to concentrate on a single perspective alone, to the exclusion of other perspectives. For example, a contemporary Postmodernist observes the similarity in visual elements between modern depictions of Satan and Pan and concludes that these entities are the same. In actuality, when Satan was first invented, he was not the ruler of Hell… the Afterlife itself was not canonized in Judeic theology until the Pharisees beat out the Sadducees. Satan’s original incarnation was as The Accuser, and plays his archetypical role perfectly in the “Book of Job” (he’s probably closer to the Egyptian Ammut than anything I can think of). In contrast, Pan arose from Greek theology, and was the god of shepherds. This would put Jesus, the “great shepherd”, as Pan’s Judeo-Christian counterpart, and in fact, the Greek historian Plutarch records that Pan died shortly after Jesus dies. Satan’s current depiction probably arose from after Constantinople’s conversion, when artists may have read “The Book of Revelation”’s description of the Roman Empire as a “horned beast” and misinterpreted it as a description of Satan. As a Postmodernist myself, I can see how a contemporary might argue that Pan evokes Satanic imagery, but when attempting to communicate with a Historian or Theologian, mass confusion will ensue (CSLewis uses a fawn to bring the children of “The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe” to God, and he obviously uses Pan as a shepherd rather than as Satan). Thus, I would argue that the primary tenant of the effective use of Postmodernism is to use more than one perspective (like how the movie “Pan’s Labyrinth” uses a fawn to invoke caution of Satanic guile, but in the end reveals his true identity as a guiding shepherd). If you sandbox yourself into only one point of view, you will come up with a set of truths that are dissonant from everyone else’s and a failure to communicate will quickly ensue. This is the reason why Postmodernists are so frequently misunderstood.
Many say that the primary tenant of Postmodernist thought is: “There is no such thing as absolute truth” If this statement is parsed on an absolute scale, it is false. Anyone who knows anything about either Math or Symbolic Logic will know that:
1) since this statement is not conditional, it is an absolute statement
2) if this statement is true, all absolute statements are false
3) since the assumption that the statement is true causes a contradiction, it must be false
So are we dumb enough to believe that “There is no such thing as absolute truth”? No! Any Postmodernist worth his salt (or “worth his blood” if you still deny the influence of the Roman Empire on literary expression) will explain that it is not the “truth” of absolute statements that we question, but the “relevance”. Let me give you an example: computer monitors cannot produce the color yellow, they can only produce the colors red, green, and blue. Fortunately for computers, humans cannot see the color yellow either, everywhere they would see yellow, they instead see a combination of red and green. Thus, if I were to address a red-green triangle on a monitor in front of a bunch of humans, they would know exactly what I was talking about: the triangle is not absolutely yellow, but who really cares? In this situation, the absolute truth is irrelevant. Now, if I were a physicist doing spectral analysis, then the absolute truth matters as the photons corresponding to the quantum states had better be oscillating at a yellow frequency for constant displacements between the emitter and the receiver. I believe that the primary statement of Postmodernism is that “The set of tenants derived from two perspectives are not always congruent”. I acknowledge that there probably is some definition of Postmodernism from an absolute perspective, but guess what? It’s probably not the same as mine, and I’m okay with that.
That being said, let’s take a look at what this “Minus” strip says about consumerism. There is no evidence that Minus purchased any balloon. We see what is probably a balloon vendor, but we should be sceptical about classifying him as a dog of the capitalist agenda, since that occupation gets none of the capital rewards and all of the capitalist shaft. He gives the girl a balloon, the balloon pops, and out of the kindness of his heart he gives the girl another. That balloon pops as well, and the girl (obviously entertained by the destruction of the balloons) picks up a stone and pops all of the balloons. When the balloon man chastises the girl, she turns him into a balloon before popping him. How is this relevant to consumerism? Well, Minus obviously does not have a sense of property and sees no difference between something that was given to her and something that belongs to someone else, she just destroys everything. Furthermore, Minus obviously does not believe in the sanctity of life, as she turns a living human into a non-living mass of stretched latex. Thus, Minus is not a consumer in the classical sense, she is more similar to a force of nature, a manifestation of the unholy union of the Law of Thelema and Childish Innocence.
In my oppinion the ballonman is really an interpretation of the ruling class, handing out pre-approved ideologies to the masses, in this case represented by minus a common citizen of good standing.
We see first how the ballonman hands minus a green balloon, reminding us of the feudal era when the common citizen had no life but work on the green fields and woods that are natures domain. However this part of history came to a close, and so too does the life of the green balloon. Still, this change of eras was a time of great pain for the common citizen as is apparent from the expression minus carry as she passes trough these times of hardship.
Then the balloonman hands out a blue balloon representing the era of capitalism in the hands of the nobles, thus the blue is not only the colour of the capitalistic ideology, but also of the blood in the veins of those who profited on this new ideology. This is also why the balloonman is so happy to hand this balloon over, for this is the time when he will profit as most.
But as history teaches, capitalism cannot sustain itself for ever, and this balloon too pops. Contrary to the exit of feudalism, this was not an unwelcomed change, but a opportunity for the masses to take power for themselves. Having exposed the agenda of the ruling class, the ideologies still in their hands fail spontaneously when faced with the emboldened public who does not become saddende by the departure of this balloon. Further the oppressed proletareat demonstrates its considerable power by further taking down the ideologies in the hand of the balloonman, this being represented by the stone trown on a impossible jorney. This winding path of the stone as it tears trough the ballons reminds of the journeys that socialist leaders faced in the times of the revolution, from the great march in china to the motorcycle travels of el che.
Faced with the destruction of his soft influence, his ideological balloons, the balloonman lashes out with harsh yet impotent words at minus, who responds calmly by reshaping him with the powers of the organized masses into the red balloon, symbol of the socialist victory.
In the second to last panel we see the state of the world at its height, the broken balloons in the background falling like confetti to indicate the celebration of the population at the victory of their struggle. Then, the author ends with an omnious warning, that even socialism must fail…
Relevant to this topic:
http://xkcd.com/451/
Ironically, if you hit your neumann boundary conditions with a log, your log will act as a heat sink…