It certainly does!

...but, uh, well, it's a widely-spaced monospace font in this case. That's the one situation where kerning actually cannot matter.

Which seems intentional. I believe, the cartoonist is being more clever here and referencing a common ligature, specifically the first of these two:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligature_(writing)

Presumably the two letters got written together so often in this futuristic universe, that "fi" has actually become its own letter. Like how in German the "ß" came to be from a ligature of a long S (ſ) and a Z (which was written as ʒ), so together "ſʒ".

Maybe someone who's deep into Simpsons lore can confirm that theory. 😅

!keming@lemmy.world