The Great Escape

This week’s new Dustinland comic was inspired by the recent events in the NYC subways in which a mentally ill homeless man was subdued by a passenger and placed in a chokehold, which wound up killing him. As a life-long New Yorker, I have been trapped in many train cars with raving lunatics, and in this comic I tell a story about one of these instances.

It’s all just such a depressing mess at the end of the day. We just seem so hopeless as a nation. We can’t do anything for anyone, even when we have the money to do so, we’re just too corrupt and inept. Maybe it’s just human nature, I don’t know. Like I say in the comic, I’m just trying to live. Maybe not the best way to solve the world’s problems, but if you’ve got the answers, please let me know.

Back To Work

This week’s new Dustinland comic is about the current debate on whether we should all start going back to the office or not. And in this strip I literally debate myself, because I do see both sides of the issue.

All joking aside, if you ask me — which nobody will — I think what people want is freedom. They want to be treated with respect and given the ability to make their own decisions about how to be successful at work. For some people, that may mean 5 days a week in the office. For others, 1. Or zero. Of course, that is a very difficult thing for a large organization to achieve. Big groups thrive on order and routine, so it’s unlikely there will be a lot of “do whatever you want.”

But I think frame 7 of the strip really nails it — no matter what, you still won’t be happy.

Move Your Sack

Let me get into the interesting details behind this week’s Dustinland comic.

See, I drew the first half based on my daily annoyances that are pretty well spelled out in the strip. But then, after it was all done and even uploaded, this morning I listened to an episode of This American Life, which I never do on my commute, because I never do the podcast thing, always opting for music instead. And this episode, it was about a French comedian trying to make it in America. At one point Jeff Garland is critiquing his set, and just goes off. “He’s a craftsman, but he’s not an artist because I don’t care about what he’s talking about. He doesn’t care! Talk about what you care about! That’s interesting!”

And I was inspired to go deeper with this strip. Because as you can see, I do care. It’s about the principle. Not just the bag, not just the minor inconvenience. Every time this happens, I think about all this stuff, all this human nature misery. It riles me up. That’s why I care. And now you know. Thanks, Ira Glass!

Commuted

This week’s Dustinland comic is my first since moving to a house in Westchester, and my last before the stupid U.S. election. I decided to spare you more political nonsense and just threw you something lighthearted about my new place in the world. And yes, it’s been two weeks since my last update. Very unusual. Aside from vacations and work trips, I have updated my site with a new comic once a week since 2000. So as you can imagine, I’ve been busy. Man, moving SUCKS. Glad I’m finally here. It’s pretty great. And yeah, the comic thing, I do feel like that but only sometimes. Like when I sit on the back of the train where all the midtown finance guys sit. The front is way chiller.

Dustinland — The 10 Subway Commanments

When you live in New York, you know commuting by subway is enough to drive you insane. This morning my train was so crowded and full of crazy people, angry lunatics and smelly, dirty homeless people, it gave me the impression that the entire world is going insane and that I better get out of NYC while I’m still relatively normal. Too late perhaps but at least I can draw almost funny comics. So that’s what this weeks Dustinland is about. I’ve been wanting to do this one for a while, although now that I think about it, if I could rearrange it, I think I would make “Shut your screaming baby up” an official commandment and make it 11. Crying baby on a morning commute? Pure hell.

In other news, there are some ads on the site now. All part of a little experiment I call “Making money so I can pay for things.” Hopeful it works out well for everyone involved.