I suggested I might write more on the eras of this comic strip, and damn it, I shall do so, hopefully one little article every Saturday. However, I've decided to expand the project some, and go into detail on each era, partially, because, well, there's a lot to write about, and partially to give myself time to review them.
So, let's start with the definition... what exactly is the Mystery Business(tm) Era?
The Mystery Business(tm) Era is the period from the strip's beginning in November of 2002, and ending in 2007, where the four members of the central cast all worked at the same unspecified business. While the cast's jobs were all laid out, what exactly this firm did never was, a long-standing tradition in the sort of workplace comedy that early DbD aspired to be.
Or more precisely insisted it aspired to be. The workplace comedy elements in Mystery Business(tm) Era DbD were always quite weak, and frequently Mystery Business(tm) seemed like little more than a place that the cast talked about politics in, and occasionally were shown working. Further, Muir never really expanded the cast that much during this period, making the setting seem exceedingly thin. It very much contrasts with the Byzantine weirdness of later eras. Though not necessarily in a good way--indeed, I'd argue that early DbD was very much a bad strip, just a different sort of bad strip than the present version. It was both yet another bad Right Wing Attempt at Their Own Doonesbury, and Half-Assed Dilbert Ripoff. And it was the closest Muir would ever get to mainstream success.
All of which makes it stand out, among the Robot Craziness of later years.