Their Motto Is "Always Be Teasing And Titillating."

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because The Valley of Vanishing Men.

Such wholesome family values.

The Mystery Business(TM) Era; Part 10: Muir Diversifies The Cast Through Retcons.

The tiny central cast of DbD of the Early Mystery Business(TM) Period were three white people and one Black guy. Then, very early in the Late Period, this suddenly became one white man, one Black guy, one Hispanic woman, and one Eurasian woman who also would sometimes be treated as fully Asian when that advanced whatever racist point Muir wanted to make in a strip.

And all without changing a single member of the cast.

Muir's decision to simply make it so that Jan and Sam were Hispanic and Eurasian respectively was... well, sloppy as hell, a pair of hamfisted retcons that just... happened. Now, Sam's, which happened quite a bit later, was shockingly quick and thoughtless, occurring in a strip that was insisting Democrats were the real racists, and also featured Damon in blackface. It was likely done partially for the joke, partially so that Muir could say his strip had an Asian in it, and partially so that Sam could fulfill two, count 'em two, sexual fetishes for her creator at once. (Zed even stresses that Sam is Irish-Japanese, which given what we've seen... yeah.)

But Jan's... well, Jan's would be complicated. It is fascinating to stare at Jan as she is presented now--dark-skinned, with long, straight black hair, and compare her to her original form--a very white woman with curly brown hair who almost always wore glasses. While Jan's ultimately dramatic change in appearance would happen, it would take some time. She would look the same throughout the entire Mystery Business(TM) Era. Indeed, only a month or two after the strip where she was revealed to be Hispanic, Jan would be back to acting as a Clueless White Girl in response to another Hispanic, her change ethnicity apparently requiring a little while to... take in universe.

Of course, this revelation had also involved the introduction of a reoccurring supporting cast member who continues to stick around DbD to this day--Jan's father, Don Portago, whom I like to call El Dorado Dad for his tendency to talk like El Dorado in Superfriends, speaking perfect or near-perfect English sprinkled with gratuitous Spanish so we all know he's foreign. El Dorado Dad would, believe it or not, have a significant effect on the strip despite not appearing that often, but that's something to talk about later. For now, what we really need to focus on is how this completely undermined Jan as a character.

Because that is what happened here, something I noted when I first reviewed that strip years ago. Jan wasn't a good character when she was a Clueless Liberal White Girl, but she at least made some sort of sense for the story Muir wanted to tell. Damon is the Black Conservative, Jan is the Clueless Liberal White Girl who keeps telling him he's being Black wrong, in essence, underlining her hypocrisy. Jan says she's fighting against privilege and the status quo but in truth she's mostly just reinforcing it. And that all changes the moment you make her a minority.

Or rather it should. Because of course, Muir hasn't really made Jan Hispanic. Much like Damon, who is completely isolated from the culture of Black America, Jan has no real ties to Hispanic culture. She will start, by degrees, to indulge in a watered down version of the character tics her father uses to show that he's foreign, occasionally speaking in Spanish, but that's it. She has no membership in left or liberal Hispanic groups--Damon will insult those groups to her face, and she will usually say nothing. She makes no comment on the hardships of being Hispanic. The cultural world she lives in is the same white Americana that the rest of the cast does. It is, once again, Muir imagining ethnicity in characters as nothing more than ticking a box.

Now, this would be both a fatal undermining and inept treatment of the character on its own. But of course... Muir would make it worse.

Who Is Even Talking In The First Panel?

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because The Secret Code.

Ahh, yes, the Muir Standard--a declaration of Left Wing principles can ONLY be the pretext for corrupt betrayal based on... whatever the hell idiocy's he's reading at the moment, distorted further by his warped mind. It's made him the self-declared champion of the common man who champions the common man taking it in the neck, and a so-called enemy of corruption who has to come up with elaborate conspiracy theories to explain how his heroes only look like they're corrupt.

And he never learns, and he never changes.

Well, That Was Astonishingly Awful.

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Perils of the Royal Mounted.

If I weren't sure that Ian was ultimately hivemind white trash scum, I'd advise him to run right now.

Uggh! MANLY!!!

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Captain Midnight.

Ahh, yes. More of the toxic masculinity that Muir thinks is admirable.

Sure. Sure. This isn't pathetic at all. Nope.

...It's A Look.

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Holt of the Secret Service.

I know I keep saying it, but these days Muir's dream life is so pathetic and repulsive when you get down to it.

Attack Of The Redneck Grub People.

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because The Iron Claw.

You know, this strip would be terrible even if it didn't feature a distorted Mari holding what looks like some mutant little person who is clearly supposed to be one of the strip's interchangeable horde of babies in the last panel.