The Eternal Egotism Of Captain Mitty.

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because The Lost Planet.

Because Zed's proud White Trashism blends so well with patrician lawyer John Adams.

The Begging Bowl Gets Positively Byzantine.

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Son of Geronimo.

This is probably the cleverest thing Muir has done with the Begging Bowl in a while.

But that's a low bar to clear.

'Alley Oop' Did It Better. And That Reminds Me I'm Probably One Of The Few People Who Knows About 'Alley Oop'.

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Blackhawk. 

So, is this going to be a time travel story, or a VR simulation story with time travel elements?

Ehh, mostly a chance for Muir to bludgeon us with his ignorant jingoism masquerading as patriotism. Again.

Muir Isn't Jealous Of The Decadent Cosmopolitans! Don't You Ever Think That!

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because King of the Congo.

Every now and then, Muir makes a cartoon that underlines there's a tiny part of him, somewhere, that knows he's a fucking parody of humanity hating on people who are better than him, and desperately telling himself that the absolute garbage he's allied with are the champions he's saying they are no matter how many times they keep demonstrating that nope, wrong again.

And that tiny part makes the part of him that honestly believes this bullshit worse.

The Mystery Business(TM) Era; Part 14: Muir Discovers The Party Can In Fact Stop.

 I noted in the past that the tone of the Early Period was largely one of triumphalism, an endless declaration that Muir's ideals were right, his opponents were wrong, and everything was going to go this way forever. While much of this could be chalked up to Muir's own political attitudes, it was also the result of the time it was created in. The Early Mystery Business(tm) Period, after all, did not just begin 2002, but November of 2002, where the combination of the post-9/11 bump, a particularly listless Democratic Party campaign, and just a pinch of gerrymandering had resulted in the Republicans not only gaining the Senate, but increasing their seats in the House, something that seldom happens for the President's party in midterms. This era of partisan triumph floated right over the 2004 elections, where there was another increase of the House majority (albeit with gerrymandering playing an even bigger part) and Bush not only was re-elected, but won a majority of the popular vote. While Muir was overstating things and painting them in his usual hamfisted, delirious manner, this was the brief time when he was roughly in sync with the zeitgeist. Pundits and political analysts talked of a permanent Republican majority. The opposition to the Iraq War, while substantial, was largely treated as an impotent, quixotic movement, and, initially, this helped make it so. And so Muir started 2005, when remember, his strip was truly entering the public eye, in high spirits.

In retrospect, of course, this very appearance of incredible power was deceptive. Bush's popular vote victory was quite narrow, especially for a wartime incumbent. The Republican majority was built on many narrow wins and was far less functional than one would think, as the cynical pragmatists had been gradually starting to get replaced by incompetent true believers, a process that was going to get worse in the years ahead as newer, more delusional strains of fanatics. Corruption was endemic for both brands, simply because the GOP's dominant brand of cynicism breeds crooks and opportunists. And the opposition to many of Bush's policies was stronger than it seemed, while the support was more shallow. 

And of course, there was a simple fact--most of the W. Bush administration's signature policies were bad ideas. Most notably, that war Muir was so very fond of. And as bad ideas are wont to, they went badly. Especially, once again, that war. But all of this was going to take a while to set in. What happened first was the W. Bush administration blowing its political capital on two failed initiatives in a monumental act of hubris, a move to partially privatize Social Security that offended the Left and Center... and a move for an immigrant amnesty that offended the Right. Muir himself would even grumble about that one, though not for very long, as he had other things to worry about. (Though whenever the amnesty proposals popped up during the remainder of Dubya's term, he would grumble once again.) Such as Hurricane Katrina demonstrating just how Dubya's tendency to cut spending and rely on cronyism had gutted necessary programs that had only a decade earlier been considered models.

Simply put, over the next two years, Muir would watch as the forces he'd seen as eternally triumphant crumbled and backslid, as the actions he'd seen as glorious successes turned to grotesque failures, as the national soundtrack turned from 'Have You Forgotten?' by Darryl Worley to 'Holiday' by Green Day. And as that happened, the tone of DbD shifted slightly. Muir became whinier, more defensive. The strip shifted from constant gloating to long stretches of Muir explaining how people were being idiots trusting their lying eyes. Major issues and disappointments were either sidestepped and minimized, like Katrina, or saw Muir actively gaslighting on the matter, such as, well, what was happening in Iraq. Still, Muir was clearly operating from the assumption this was all just temporary disturbances, and that nothing would really change. Which at least partially explains the next character who'd be joining the cast. But this atmosphere was going to hang around for the rest of the Mystery Business (tm) Era, and even into the start of the Transition Era.

Get used to it, and frankly enjoy it while it's here, because what would follow would be worse. 

Muir Doesn't Understand What's Happening, But He Read A Summary, And It's Got His Blood Pumping.

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Captain Video: Master of the Stratosphere.

And we get the usual 'All socialism is totalitarian communism' bullshit, the 'Democrats have always been communists' bullshit, the 'Muir appropriating a piece of pop culture he misunderstands' bullshit, and the 'Muir dreaming about a civil war because he thinks it can only result in his sort smashing inferior leftist heads' bullshit. All pretty typical. Still, we do get an interesting variation of Muir almost certainly regurgitating someone else's bile and not realizing the implications.

Coming out against the 1848 revolutions in the 21st century. Well, we all knew Muir was turning on actual democracy and leaning towards monarchy, but it always clarifies things when he comes out and says it. Even if he doesn't realize that's what he's saying.

Muir Missing The Point As Usual.

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Mysterious Island.

It's a fascinating illustration of Muir's spiritual bankruptcy that his attempts to imitate foreigners discovering things like ranch dressing being good is this awfulness.

Also, those foreigners are largely seeing those evil Blue Cities you hate and insist are not the Real Murica, Muir. But then, consistency has never been his thing.

And That's Why Massive Corruption Is Good Actually!

 It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Roar of the Iron Horse.

It's kind of amusing to see so many strands of Muir being lazy sewn together here. We've got DEI used as a vague buzzword for stuff Muir doesn't like, the arrogant, ignorant assertion that liberalism and leftism are just bad and ruin things, they JUST do, he doesn't need to prove it, Muir swallowing a blatant obvious falsehood to explain away something shameful and thinking this proves how clever, how with it, how patriotic he is. It's such a sterling display of all the awfulness and stupidity that make him... well, him.

Has He Mentioned How Hard It Is To Be White Lately?

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Pirates of the High Seas.

The eternal whine of Muir's cast that they are the most persecuted people EVAH.

God, it's so tiresome.

His Father's Son, That One.

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Atom Man vs. Superman.

...

I'm going to pass commenting on Muir's new favorite racist phrase and Javier fully taking his father's mantle to note that apparently that branch of the cast have gone back to Argentina once again, so yeah, Muir gave up on reintegrating them yet again.

Astonishing How All The Cast's Business Endeavors Through The Years Wind Up Involving Nudity.

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Cody of the Pony Express.

It's grimly fascinating how much use Muir's gotten out of that single picture of two sitting hicks.

A Business Model Slightly Less Self-Destructive Than Muir's.

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Adventures of Sir Galahad.

These drawings emphasize how her daughters--just like her sister and her mother---are pretty much just Sam with a slightly different head now.

The Mystery Business(TM) Era; Part 13: Lo, A Captain Mitty Approacheth.

 So now that we've looked at how Jan's character, measly as it had been, was sent into a destructive tailspin by the combination of an ill-considered retcon to her ethnicity, accompanied by the sudden transformation of her background to being ultra-wealthy, and a somehow even more ill-considered relationship with Damon, it's time to move on. Because as significant as all that was, it was small beer next what would wind up the most significant retcon in DbD history, the one which changed Zed and Sam from mere members of an ensemble into the strip's de facto protagonists.

Early in 2005, Zed and Sam went on a date. They were randomly mugged by a knife-wielding thug, as happens in fiction, and most especially conservative fiction, and Zed drew a gun on the mugger, followed, of course, by Sam also drawing a gun. What followed was the stereotypical 'good guy with a gun' story, with Sam and Zed reveling in their mighty power. This moment has been called by others the birth of the new Zed, the figure I like to call 'Captain Mitty'. However, I argue that would actually come later. This was more the moment when the embryonic form of that character, who'd lurked around the edges of Zed in his schlub days, became sharply defined. Captain Mitty would be truly born nearly a year later.

That event would occur in a later mini-storyline, Zed, Sam, Damon and Jan go out to practice their shooting, and Sam notes that the various military guys are saluting Zed. Zed burbles out an explanation, Sam notes that Zed has scars on his back, Zed burbles out more explanation, and in aside panel, two of the military guys reveal that Zed is a former special ops sniper.

And just like that... we had Captain Mitty, Zed not as a dopey aging office worker, but as a patriotic deadly badass. And because she was ultimately defined by her relationship with Zed, Sam would change too, to become the worthy helpmate of this vir maximus. Indeed, we see some of it in that first story I mentioned, where Sam, in that mugging, drew her gun as quickly as Zed did. The woman who'd been defined as Zed's counterpart as a snarky, aging urban professional was going to become, well, his counterpart in a very different way.

Now, this is the start of Zed and Sam's becoming figures of more or less total wish fulfillment, not the end, so we will be talking about this more in the future, especially once we hit the Transition Era. But what we need to shift to in the next installment is how the changing politics of the world changed the tone of DbD in very subtle ways.

At first.

"Surely, My Diminishing Reader Base Can Fill Up The Meter As Quickly As They Did Last Year!"

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Batman and Robin.

...

Once again...

Every.

Frickin'.

Year.

Behold! Part Woman, Part Howler Monkey!

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Bruce Gentry.

...

Sometimes, it's very baffling what stock poses Muir falls in love with. Especially the ones he apparently decides are titillating.

Enjoy More Creepiness!

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Congo Bill.

...

There's something so revealing in that this is Muir's version of an idealized world, a world of leering creeps.

The Begging Bowl Gets Ever More Pathetic.

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Superman.

...What is going on in that first panel?

"How Does My Unsustainable Business Model Keep Getting Worse? HOW?"

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Tex Granger.

Every.

Frickin'.

Year.

And Remember, He Thinks His Opponents Are The Nazis.

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Brick Bradford.

What makes this little bit of hate bearable is the fact that it is, again, being produced as his latest idol cracks up and runs out of political juice. This has been a regular feature in DbD, Muir declaring that the great victory is nigh, and that everyone now hates his opponent, and soon, soon... He's just gotten nastier and more blatant in how he says it.

Never Not Be Whining.

 It's the Day's Day of Days! Because The Sea Hound.

Well, at least they're not talking about plans to set up a death camp at the moment...

The Mystery Business(TM) Era; Part 12: One Of The Worst 'Will-They-Won't-They' Plotlines Ever Depicted Resolves. Terribly.

And so, onto the next part of the Character Assassination of the Liberal Stooge Jan by the Hack Chris Muir. As I've noted previously, the idea that Jan and Damon had this incredible romantic chemistry is something Muir kept tossing out there throughout the Early Period. It wasn't true, but he very much thought it was, hence years of strips where he kept treating Damon's either belittling Jan or acting like a disgusting horndog towards her as some sort of romantic appeal. But with the start of the Late Period, he really stepped it up. Over a series of storylines, starting with the 'Damon quits because Pepsi said mean things about Bush!' one I mentioned in the last installment, Muir gradually hooked up the pair.

The definitive plot where it happened was one where Damon's house got seized and demolished by Florida for eminent domain purposes without any warning--Muir really hates eminent domain--Jan offered to let him stay with her, and, well, that was that. Just as Sam and Zed just sort of were a couple, all at once, Jan and Damon wound up one, and again, that was that.

It's astonishing, really, how little mileage Muir got out of something that he clearly imagined was providing a major plotline. No romantic false leads. No breakups followed by reconciliations. As usual, things just sort of happened, while keeping things almost completely within the tiny little cast he'd provided for the strip. Muir can't write romance for the same reason he can't write anything--there's something in him that just hates having bad things happen to his cast. Damon and Jan wound up another example of what is the typical DbD couple, devoid of any real conflict in their relationship, and with no real chemistry, despite their creator being convinced they possessed oodles of it.

What was worse was what a nasty, dysfunctional dynamic he gave to the pair. Prior to hooking up with Jan, Damon had either been dismissive of her, or had been making passes at her, and afterwards... well, he still was, only now when the second happened, Jan just sort of went along with it. And while she would still fight back against the first, it was generally less and less in the manner of someone who genuinely believed what she was saying and more as someone putting in a token effort. Jan's behavior over this and well, the early stages of the Transition Era, are what caused me to start referring to Muir's cast as 'the hivemind', to symbolize how not only are they all Muir using sock puppets, but for the way that main cast members who are initially shown having distinct opinions are usually warped into just another such puppet in something that feels like it slipped in from a Body Snatchers movie. But Jan's case, well, it's extra unpleasant. Because with her, it has the genuine feel of an abusive relationship, a significant other browbeating and gaslighting their partner until they wind up just echoing their opinions back to them.

In time, Jan's original personality would completely collapse, leaving her without any function in the strip save to show up and agree with Damon. But that would take a while. We would still get many years of watching her and Damon's relationship drag on in that very unpleasant manner I mentioned.

Once Again, He's Certain THIS Time The Mass Arrests Will Be Really Real!

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because The Vigilante.

Muir's ability to convince himself that this time his fascist dreams are gonna happen, not only AFTER countless previous disappointments, but in the middle of multiple ones AND while watching the Trump administration unravel is almost impressive, in a wretched, pathetic way.

"Waaah! They Have To Be Cheating!"

 It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Jack Armstrong.

You know, this is a fascinating multi-level fail right here. Aside from the 'So the California Democrats will cheat to push out a Republican Mayoral candidate, but not a Republican Gubernatorial candidate" bit, he's failing to consider that if Pratt had gotten in, he would have then had to win... the actual election.

But then, anything that let's Muir whine and scream that it isn't fair, and the other guys are cheating.

This Would Be Such An Inconvenience For Them, Personally.

 It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Son of the Guardsman.

It's a good example of the moral wretchedness of this fictional universe that Sam and Zed clearly feel the only morally objectionable part of this proposed death camp is that they, a family of good volk would be near it. 

And that they overcome this objection by thinking that, well, hey, they'd be guys doing some of the murdering.

For The Mass Arrests! That Are Surely Coming THIS Time!

 It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Chick Carter, Detective.

You know, there's both the chilling part of this--Muir spouts this Nazi bullshit and doesn't even realize it's Nazi bullshit, he thinks he's being a patriotic Murican--and the deeply amusing part of this--Muir imagines his little secret prison for dissidents at a time when his lumpish hero is running out of juice on nearly every front.

Destroying It Completely, Yet Again.

 It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Hop Harrigan.

You know, the amount of times they've utterly thwarted this preposterous thing after previously utterly thwarting it takes on a certain comic grandeur that only gets better when the completely ridiculous nature of it--a prospective Muslim-only building project, on the Texas border--is considered. This is Muir so desperate for a hate object, he throws one together in a hurry, then keeps putting the resulting jumble back up so he can knock it down again.

"Th-They Are So Jealous Of Us!"

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Who's Guilty?

Won't lie, Muir going full Randroid during Begging Bowl season, a man begging for spare change to make his bad comics yelling about how he is a Maker, yeah, not a puh-parasite, never stops being amusing, and this time it's joined with full on Downfall-style denial of the actual world, as Muir does his best to avoid noticing how badly things are going for Trump right now. It's Muir at his most nakedly wretched and pathetic, a fraud and a failure on his own supposed terms not only following the same, but trying to pretend that it isn't just nonsense. That he won't cheerfully move the supposedly rigid goalposts of his beliefs all over the place to tell himself he and his are the real winners, and also the true Muricans.

An Announcement.

 So some good news. Now, many years ago, after I'd been writing this blog for half a decade, Muir did a website change that rendered a huge swathe of my links dead--or deadish. They'd take you to the site, but not to any comic. And I mean a lot of strips--I had done not only every strip that had been published during the blog's existence, but every strip published prior. Going through and fixing that would be a monumental task.

Which I have now completed. Nearly all the links work. While there's a possibility of my missing a few, what's more definite is that a few strips have vanished, including a flash-animated strip that Muir apparently lost during the move and has never fixed up.

So, there you go. Won't lie, I'm quite happy to have pulled this off. I should add that I'm still going through my archives and fiddling with things, so the Project isn't finished, but the most substantial part of it is done.

Sam's Howler Monkey Face Bids You Shell Out The Dough!

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Jungle Raiders.

There's something extra-pathetic in how Muir whines about his tiny besieged island of Right-wing culture... during a fucking Republican trifecta. But of course that doesn't count, because it isn't magi-winning the way he was sure it was going to.

The Mystery Business(TM) Era; Part 11: Daddy Warbucks In Rich Corinithian Leather.

 I'd originally planned to talk about Jan and Damon's relationship, but then I saw that the very first storyline to actually ratchet it up involved the emergence of Don Portago's increased role in the strip, so you know what? We're doing this.

Now, Don Portago was introduced primarily to announce that oh, yes Jan was Hispanic, but he did a lot more than that. He also established that she was from a wealthy upbringing. Why Muir decided this was something he had to do isn't necessarily clear--part of it was doubtless to further underline that she was his own stereotype of a liberal, a child of privilege whose views were just the result of being coddled. But it's hard not to suspect that another part was on some level Muir feeling that making Jan Hispanic necessitated giving her more advantages to make her fit that stereotype. Jan as a merely middle-class Hispanic woman doesn't hit the way a Hispanic woman who has never and will never have to worry about money does.

In essence--Muir knew on some level that what he liked to think was bullshit, and if he didn't give Jan more money than she needed, people would naturally start seeing her as facing problems in life. And so her father was made into an insanely wealthy and connected man.

This would have a profound effect on the strip, and in fact, it wouldn't take long for it to emerge. A storyline in 2005 would see Damon quitting in a huff when he found that Mystery Business(tm)'s primary stock holder was Pepsi, whose CEO had said some unkind things about Dubya. Jan, instead of seeing this as a profoundly childish and unprofessional behavior, was filled with admiration, because Muir was convinced he was writing something like Sam and Diane. And so Jan went to her father... who simply bought the company.

Now, this little plot detail was never brought up again, not least of all because Muir just didn't understand what he'd done here. But to mix my Greek metaphors, Pandora's Box was opened, and Muir had discovered the use of a Deus ex machina to have lowered from the heavens at will. El Dorado's Dad improbable wealth would be popping up quite a bit in the future whenever Muir figured he needed it... and that was only the first of these Plot Coupons (as I like to call them) to appear. Soon, they'd proliferate, leading to the bizarre world the cast lives in now.

But then, a lot of very stupid, silly things were put into motion at this stage of the strip.

Every... Frickin'... Year.

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because The Monster and the Ape.

Ahh. Now he's wishing for 2025.

When he was wishing for 2024.

When he was wishing for 2023.

When...

You just really wonder when 'Every year, it's taking longer and longer' will break through, but then, so much doesn't with Muir.

Once You Go Nazi, Everything's An Excuse For A Cull.

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Brenda Starr, Reporter.

I see Muir's trying to distract himself from watching the Second Trump Administration hit its terminal phase by looking across the Atlantic for things to be a racist moral nullity about.

"It Takes Courage To Just Throw Me Softballs And Spout Regime Propaganda!"

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Black Arrow.

I'll give him this--it took real effort to create the worst 'Cast Member as Bad Reporter' plotline, but damn it, he did it.

Next, She'll Tell Him How Great He Looks.

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because The Desert Hawk.

And once again, delusion and utter sycophancy is the sign of a great reporter in Muir's mind. At least, if the government is a fascist trainwreck. Anyone else must see you trying to hurl crazyshit against the wall to see if it will stick.

Once Again, He Thinks This Shit Shows What A Hard-Hitting Journalist She Is.

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because The Phantom.

Most of the nation looks on the slush fund, and sees obvious corruption that will be used to finance the seditious goons that Trump already got off the hook for further seditious goonery.

Muir thinks he sees a winning issue and more proof of how his opponents are stupid and he is so smart.