It's the Day's Day of Days! Because take my hand, precious Lord.
You know, I was looking back at the past, and in 2017, while Muir was definitely avoiding dealing with the real Trump administration, he was still largely writing political strips, not this 'Nothing is happening, all is well' slop. I do think this go-around is just further breaking him, in some quiet little way.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because the Cardinal of Bottles.
And having flirted with the political world that actually exists, albeit in a greatly distorted form, Muir goes back to just playing paper dolls with all his by this point close to identical female cast.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Cambria cannot yield.
As Muir once again fantasizes that his cast are besties with his version of Trump, we see him vaguely comment on the tariff policy, which cements that Muir doesn't understand tariffs, as he seems to think that foreign nations pay them, instead of... well, companies that import things and ultimately, the consumer.
But then, it's blustery and mean, so Muir is certain it has to work.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because behold the putz.
And one of the grand laws of DbD, if Muir does something halfway successful, he will usually drag the damn thing out so the joke gets old, weird and awkward. Which gets me to what I promised yesterday.
Why is Muir tossing out this bizarre robot subplot now, interspersed with snippets of his usual argle-bargle, gobbledygook f'hoy crazy talk? Two reasons. Firstly, the robots don't have much to do in a universe where the evil gubmint forces aren't bearing down on the Compound. The second? Muir is once again lost at sea with an actual Trump administration in power, especially one that refuses to produce the magic wins he wants. Oh, he'll chuckle when Trump announces some wannabe dictator bullshit that "owns the libs", but as those policies invariably keep stumbling out in the wild, they're not something he wants to deal with. So we get endless weird, pointless stories from the Compound, as Muir tries to figure out what to do next.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because the Hello.
I'd have to admit, that got a chuckle out of me. Sure, it was the uncomfortable sort that a lot of 1980s sex comedies get in their goodish bits, but it was a chuckle. Muir used to have at least one decentish comedy strip a year. That's fallen off of late. I actually have a theory why we're seeing this now--hell, why we're seeing this entire plotline now, but I think I'll explain that tomorrow.
Or this will take a veer to the horrific, and I will push it into the future. Let's wait and see.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because A Knife Will Cut for Anybody.
A reminder that the people he's declaring weak and un-American are the ones who beat the assholes who believed things very much like this utter shit eighty years ago. As the guys like Muir sputtered that we were wrong to fight the glorious Third Reich.
But that's the thing with fascist filth. They're whiny little wretches under all the bluster, as this entire mass of hatred, cowardice, lies and projection trying to masquerade as patriotism demonstrates.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because They Can Only Hang You Once.
Jesus fucking Christ.
...
Remember, folks, if you're poor, Black, and speak with a dialect, it's a sign of how inferior you are.
As opposed to White folk with dialects, who are of course, good and virtuous.
Also, the poor are inferior and deserve to starve. Doing this won't have any negative repercussions at all. It can't! How can society need people who aren't well-to-do? How?
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Too Many Have Lived.
There is something so fucking pathetic about this.
So.
Fucking.
Pathetic.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because A Man Called Spade.
I can't help but suspect that Muir has decided the robots are becoming something a burden and a distraction to the story, and this is an effort to at least partially sideline them.
It's more elegant that the entire Gunpowder secession just suddenly not being a thing. Alongside the Gunpowder gold depository. Remember the gold depository? I'm not sure Muir does.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because The Maltese Falcon.
Man, it's like Muir came up with the vaguely sexist insult that would say 'Dems suck' and never even thought any further, so it comes across as bizarre and meaningless, the equivalent of the White House reps saying "Your mom" to everything.
Yes, they're doing that.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Death and Company.
Man, haven't seen Javier for awhile. Amazing for the guy who literally provides the Compound with all its ludicrous tech. And it's interesting to see that now Muir draws him as this strange distorted goblin figure, no doubt partially because, well, he hasn't drawn him for awhile.
As I keep noting it's fascinating how Damon and Jan, once a major part of the strip, have all but disappeared, and those characters connected with them are seen even less. (A reminder that Javier has a sister.) As I've noted before, a modern day Barney Google.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because The Farewell Murder.
There's something truly grotesque when Muir tries to present his protagonists as fundamentally chivalrous and better than their degenerate opponents, as well, they're living in the world Muir built and, yeah, he's actually cool with the degeneracy, as long as it's done on his terms.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Fly Paper.
At this point, I'm fairly certain the Kentucky Gentleman is telling Muir this is a brilliant move, top notch.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because The Dain Curse--Black Riddle.
...
If you were writing a work of fiction where a cartoonist did a strip that revealed all his deep-rooted psychological issues...
It'd be this, but more subtle.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because The Dain Curse--Black Honeymoon.
...
As we stare at this mass of cliche and awful, I feel obligated to note that even in the days when the entire female cast was not defined by wanting to sleep with Zed or a Zed substitute if that is inappropriate, a disproportionate chunk of the cast did want to sleep with him, after Muir introduced the young female intern who had 'wants to sleep with Zed' as her sole character trait.
This made it into 2/3rds of the female cast, because DbD had a teeny cast in those days.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because The Dain Curse--The Hollow Temple.
Remember when all the women in the cast DIDN'T want to fuck Zed? Boy, that was a long time ago, wasn't it?
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because The Dain Curse--Black Lives.
Yeah, no, you don't follow the Three Laws, Jo. We've seen you whack guys, so if you're following them, you have some Nazi definition of what human is.
(Amusingly, one of the first Robot stories had scientists dealing with a robot that could read minds, and the point was made that its adherence to what it imagined was how to follow the Three Laws in that situation turned it into a gaslighting liar. And ultimately made it break down.)
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because This King Business.
You know, commenting on all that 1930s style dialogue really underlines this for me... we know that Muir's a classic comic nerd. He's had Sam dress up as Miss Lace, after all. A part of Muir doing plotlines like this is about running the sort of classic adventure stories that Terry and the Pirates, Wash Tubbs, and The Gumps used to run. And I will not fault the man for ambition.
The problems are manifold. Muir has not advanced as either a writer or an artist to make such efforts work, and is in a situation where, as I've noted, he will not advance, basking in the praise of an uncritical audience that applaud everything he does. Then Muir's politics color everything, by design, so we wind up with stories where the text is bad, and the subtext is worse. This strip is as delirious as Late Chester Gould Dick Tracy without ever having been, well, Golden Age Chester Gould Dick Tracy.
It's honestly kind of sad.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Red Harvest--The 19th Murder.
I've said it before, but sometimes the extent to which Zed and his vast network of imaginary ex-special forces asshole buddies wind up illustrating how very pathetic Muir's fantasy of masculine power is just... gets you.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Red Harvest--Dynamite.
Ahh, the bit where Muir channels old 1930s strips badly.
Joy.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Red Harvest--Crime Wanted - Male or Female.
Given that this little rant masquerading as a conversation is pretty much all things Muir's hypocritically ranted at before, I'm going to focus that even though Musk is now well into his unpersoning, Muir keeps up with the cybertruck, hinting at some residual fondness and hopes that Elon shall return from his exile.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Red Harvest--The Cleansing of Poisonville.
Muir's very pronounced anglophobia. Always... odd to see.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because The Main Death.
I won't lie, there's something deeply amusing about the Right's endless wingdings about pro football these days, bigoted whiny scolds screaming at everyone else for having fun, and also, how can you say them being mean shitheads isn't fun, sn-snowflake? On some level, you think they feel it, that they have not only made themselves into precisely what their enemies said they were, but also what they said their enemies were at the same time.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because $106,000 Blood Money.
Muir finally notices the shutdown to give his batshit, racist, completely deluded by his handlers views...
And that fucking second panel, another thing for my now massive 'Yes, Muir is an antisemite now' pile.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because The Big Knock-Over.
I won't lie, not only do we have Muir's standard 'accusing others of being pedophiles with the jailbait character he created to get horny over', but at this present moment, the strip is badly out of step with what's happening in the real world.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Creeping Siamese.
Won't lie, there's something both amusing and disturbing about how Muir went from an AI-booster, to an AI-skeptic, to a ranting AI-paranoid in a fairly short period of time. As I keep noting, pliable as ever. (Though part of this seems to have been spurred by realizing that he was among those being ripped off, so... good on him? Maybe? Look, it's Muir actually acting in his own interests for once instead of just placidly assuming his fascist and corporate overlords are on his side. The problem is so much of his basic functions have rotted to this present level of crazy.)
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because The Gutting of Couffignal.
I know I keep commenting how pathetic this is, but, well, that's because it's so very pathetic.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Dead Yellow Women.
...You know the layers of awful here are kind of impressive, like a sort of parfait of insane bullshit. Muir's unsettling ideas of how parenthood should function giving way casually to his batshit conspiracy theories about the Evil Conspiracy of Evil.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Corkscrew.
On some level, Muir is puzzled about what to do with the twins because having them move on to new guys means giving up this portion of Captain Mitty's fantasy life where he is the eternal daddy to a pair of womanchilds who never really grow up.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because The Scorched Face.
The horrible sense of an obnoxious old man who never managed to stop being an obnoxious twelve year old at heart, in all the worst ways. No childlike sense of wonder. Just a smug conviction that you are right, you deserve everything you want, and anyone who is different than you is stupid and stuff.
