Wait, if the Kirby from the 3rd panel is consumed, then how do the following Kirby's exist?

You can't exist if you were just obliterated a few seconds ago.

The only way this could work is if the 3rd panel exists in a separate continuity and the actual order of the comic is 1,2,4,5,6 with 3 excluded from the timeline as some sort of parallel universe.

The comic below makes perfect sense and has no timeline errors in it as the consequences of the preceding panels appropriately affect the following ones. Gooby can have the hat in the 3rd panel because in the 2nd panel he stole it from his 4th panel self, whence onward he is missing the stolen hat. In the above comic, Kirby cannot exist past the 3rd panel because that is when he was consumed and eradicated by his 2nd panel self!

This is why I hate time travel, it's way too easy to fuck up.

Kirby ate a panel, not himself. That's why he turned into a comic