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.
Thank you for this! It seems like we've been mired in the Sexy Robot/Texackistan Autonomous Region craziness for so long, I've forgotten what the earlier eras of the strip were like. It'll be nice to get some retrospective analysis.
ReplyDeleteNo need for thanks, I've been itching to do something like this for awhile. It's fascinating to both track the differences and to see all the places where the more things change, the more things stay the same.
DeleteIt’s mindblowing how NORMAL the strip was. And how NORMAL its worldview was. Annoying, ill-informed, and ignorant, but normal. Recognizably sane.
DeleteMuir’s degeneration into abject madness parallels the trajectory of the American right more broadly. It’s seriously worthy of a thesis paper.
As I always keep noting, one shouldn't overstate this. Muir's politics were always vile, even if they were initially more sedate, and the general assumption that the cast's sociopathy was what made them likable was sort of baked in early.
DeleteBut yes, Muir only really snaps shortly after the Obama election, even if many of the traits that make the strip... such a thing are there in embryonic form.