Going To A High Society Soiree With The President, As One Does.

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because The Purple Monster Strikes.

Ahh, Muir's cast is going to have a chat with the imaginary version of Trump they're sort of friends with. I expect an epic attempt at squaring the circle.

Muir's simultaneous hatred of and longing to belong to the upper class explains so much of his character. Especially when you add in that his political stance, with its lack of any belief in economic justice, leaves him muttering how he knows that obviously, he doesn't resent their wealth, oh no, that's totally okay.

The Mystery Business(TM) Era; Part 2: The Divisions Within The Divisions

I'll start with noting that this wasn't the originally planned Part 2 of this series, but that I realized that I had another thing to define before getting into the nitty gritty. So, we've got this one, about the subdivisions of the divisions I've made.

Eras are big overarching stretches of the strip marked by common creative threads. (Even if, in the case of the Transition Era, those threads consist of 'being stuck between two clearly delineated eras' and 'watching Muir struggle to figure out what he wanted to do with the strip'.) But within the eras, there are similar divisions, story threads taken up then abandoned, style choices that come and go, obsessions and oddities that appear, then disappear. Taking a hint from geologists, these will be called periods.

Now, I expect that the future Eras are going to be quite involved, but the Mystery Business(tm) Era is a simpler beast--it divides cleanly into the Early Mystery Business(tm) Period, 2002 to 2004, and the Late Mystery Business(tm) Period, 2005 to 2007. The Early Period is both formative, and also, clearly something Muir is doing as a hobby. Both 2003 and 2004 see him take lengthy hiatuses, and even in 2002, where the strip is active for only two months, he still manages to miss a day.

The Late Period, however, marks the brief apogee of Muir's mainstream involvement. From 2005 to late in 2007, Day by Day was actually syndicated in a handful of newspapers. This saw Muir attempting a more rigorous, professional attempt to produce strips on time, and also saw some developments in the characters and politics of the strip, which will be gone into later. This syndication ended abruptly--likely of self-inflicted wounds on Muir's part--and so by the end of the Late Period, Muir was transitioning the strip back to online only.

And this brings up something connected to all this that has to be mentioned--the Mystery Business(tm) Era is the shortest by a significant margin. The only one that is presently shorter is the Gunpowder Era, and that is presently ongoing, and should outstep it during the course of this year. The Compound and Transition Eras outpace it by a year and multiple months, and even that undersells its brevity, because again, there are significant hiatuses in the Early Period comics. The foundational era of Day by Day has the least strips. I suspect there's something to this, and yes, I will go into it in the near future.

Right, Forget What We Said Earlier, This Is The Actual Brilliant Plan.

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Federal Operator 99.

The Gnostic reality shifts and Muir insists this shows how clever he is, as he sneers at alliances, sneers at Congress, and imagines that this boondoggle is somehow going to be a cost-saving measure.

This is simultaneously creepy and sad.

Muir Wishes To Remind Us That He's A Racist Who Believes The Great Replacement Conspiracy Theory. And Also, In Weird, Bad Pinup Art. With Robots.

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Manhunt of Mystery Island.

There's something so quietly disgusting about his characters smiling smugly as they pose naked and spout racist drivel.

Setting Up An Obvious Filthy Pun.

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Zorro's Black Whip.

It says something that it's quite obvious that the only reason that he even used the word 'taint' was...

Well, to set up the labored "punchline".

And That's Elites With A ((())).

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Haunted Harbor.

Look at the Nazi filth spouting Nazi filth and imagining its not a Nazi.

Ugh.

Soon, They'll Add The Reverse Vampires To The Evil Conspiracy Of Evil.

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because The Tiger Woman.

As we stare at this pile of gibberish masquerading as an explanation, I have to note that this has the sort of desperate feel of those 2007-08 strips where Muir would reaffirm that he still trusted Dubya, yep, yep. Just with an extra layer of cray-cray on top.