Don’t Camp My Style

This week’s new Dustinland comic is about camping and my mixed feelings toward it. Which is tough, because it feels like you’re SUPPOSED to like camping. And I do… sometimes. I think I liked it more when I was younger, really. The simpler, the better. The more stuff, the more people, the more whining, the less fun.

Also peeing in the night is really annoying. Man, that tent zipper feels as loud as an electric guitar set to 11 when you unzip it in the middle of the night, waking up everyone around you with your dumb constant peeing. Damn small bladder and light, drinkable beers.

Advice Advice

This week’s Dustinland comic is about unwanted advice. And you know, I don’t mean casually saying “oh, when I grow this flower I use extra peaty soil.” I mean when people tell others how to live their lives with a big SHOULD. There’s a huge difference between you could and you should. I personally lean toward could. I don’t know what the answer is. I can only recommend. But man, some people just think everyone else should replicate their life, and that’s weird. I get it — you’re theoretically happy and you want your friends to join you. But do you really want to be responsible for their decisions, especially if they don’t work out?

Domestic Flights… of Rage

I’ve been pretty busy lately so this week’s new Dustinland comic is just a quick two-panel strip about… well basically what happens just about every day at home. And you know, I think a big part of having a family is being able to not fly off the handle at stupid little things, like the way the dishwasher is loaded. Just chill, because half the time the thing that wasn’t put back in the right place… it’s something you did and just forgot. Except for when the kids don’t close the cabinet doors DAMMIT HOW HARD IS IT?!

The Point

This week’s new Dustinland comic is about the point of life, more or less. I think when you’re a parent, these sort of things take on a new urgency, because it’s one thing to stumble through life believing whatever you believe, doing what you can to stay sane, but it’s another thing to teach a new human what to believe and what ideas should guide their life.

As I say in the comic, I don’t really know what the point of it all is, obviously. I’m not religious, so I don’t have that to guide me. And I try to be a good person and all that, I try to live in the moment. It’s just hard. These days, the more information I receive, the more depressed I get. And yet a life of blissful ignorance also feels irresponsible. So I’m really not sure what to do or think these days, and that certainly makes it hard to be responsible for someone else’s life. But kids grow up and figure things out and adopt their own beliefs. The best I think we can do is make sure they turn out to be good people, kind, nice, grateful, insert positive adjective here, you get the picture.

Man, now I’m bumming myself out as usual. Sorry! Next week I’ll go back to wacky zany honk honk clown horn.

Drunk With Power

I’ve covered this topic before, but in this week’s new Dustinland comic I discuss what happens when parents try to crack down on their kids’ entitled behaviors. I think a lot of this is an age thing. Unless you raise your kids all strict and stuff (which is probably awesome), they reach a certain age where they are in the middle — old enough to want to do stuff on their own, but young enough to still cling to the convenience of childhood when mommy gets them what they need because if they try to do it on their own it will just create a huge disaster for everyone. Either way though, I wind up drinking by the end.

Parent Interrupted

This week’s new Dustinland comic is about how my kid is always interrupting me when I’m in the middle of a sentence, and then about how I just know there will be two kinds of comments. Older folks whose kids are grown or younger people who don’t have kids will tell me what I’m doing wrong. And people with kids around the same age as mine will comment in agreement. However… now that I called that out in a preemptive strike, the comments will now include offended people from the former group.

Also, two new Birdys.

6 Disappointing Things To Do With Your Kids

I think the title of this week’s new Dustinland comic speaks for itself. Not to say there aren’t fun things to do with kids, or that these things in the comic can’t actually be fun. It’s just that so much of being a parent is trying to make your kid happy, only to have it blow up in your face. On the other hand, sometimes the most fun you’ll ever have as a family is just around the house, when doing nothing turns into doing something super unexpectedly amazing or hilarious. But that’s a way less funny comic. No one wants to read “6 Amazingly Fun Times I Had With My Family”. I mean…. I guess some people want to read that, but some people also collect Precious Moments Figurines.

La Parenteria

This week’s new Dustinland comic features meal time at my home, reimagined as if it were a restaurant. Yes, I am the waiter, and my demanding, picky child is the customer. I would imagine we all feel like this at some point, and even my parents probably did so many years ago, despite me being the perfect child.

But yeah, kids don’t eat anything and it’s maddening. Fun times.

1 Crazy Summer

This week’s new Dustinland comic is not really a guide to staying sane this summer, but rather a way to vent about how incredibly boring and frustrating it is to stay home with your family for weeks during 90-degree heat. There really is just nothing to do, and the days of “yay let’s do a puzzle” are far behind us. But while I complain in the strip in what I hope is a wacky relatable way you’ll all appreciate and share with your friends on your 78 social media accounts, in reality, I do try to have little things — little routines with kiddo especially — that keep things interesting and keep us from going nuts. My favorite is our weekly “snack attack”, where we go to 7-11 or CVS and I simply let my 8-year-old son buy whatever he wants. It’s good times — although it does result in what I mention in #2 of this week’s strip. Oh well, gotta give ourselves a break this year!

Risqué Business

This week’s new Dustinland comic is quite cheeky. It’s about dads — well, one dad: me — making naughty little double entendres around the house since my little one is too young to understand them. Totally immature, but you do have to find ways to entertain yourself in this domestic life.