Another Day

After starting my day by having to tell my son about what happened in Texas, I felt compelled to create this new Dustinland comic.

Not much more to say here than what I already said in the comic. It’s just a harsh reality we live in. Very hard not to think humans are just generally shitty and hopeless, even though most of us are nice (maybe). As a whole… it just seems we are doomed to stand in our own way. Hard not to feel hopeless, but still gotta wake up and give it your best every day.

Freedom?

This week’s new Dustinland comic is about the ongoing nightmare we’re experiencing after last week’s violence in D.C. While it would be easy to just rant about how everyone warning about the dangers of Trumpist misinformation was right, I felt it more interesting and nuanced to discuss freedom. Freedom of speech in particular. Because it’s probably the one place where I am hearing a debate from both sides, not just one. And it’s an interesting and distressing problem. One I don’t claim to have the solution to. All I can say confidently is that governing hundreds of millions of people is complicated, and like Socrates suggested, anyone who walks around pompously claiming they know the answer to this or that is probably full of it.

One last note. I don’t love the art for this one, but I just needed to get a strip out before some other crazy shit happens, and free time is tricky to come by in these quarantine days. So thanks for staying with me even if this week’s strip is more of an illustrated article than a comic.

It Ain’t Over Til It’s Over

This week’s new Dustinland comic is meant to prepare my readers who voted for Biden. Prepare you for a week of hell. Maybe a few months of it. Because Trump will not leave peacefully. His followers won’t either. It is a cult, plain and simple. Not all 70 million who voted for him. But a certain element of it. And these diehards have so embraced dear leader, that they will believe anything he says. And he will rally them — maybe to violence.

So stay focused, people. Put down the bubbly. It’s time to get serious again. And that feeling you had Saturday when people were dancing in the street? Let that inspire you to fight for your right to feel it again January 20th.

A Dream of Redemption

With this week’s new pre-election Dustinland comic, I’m trying to keep it hopeful and inspiring! And that is hard for me, because I am NOT that kinda guy. Deep down inside, as I suggest in the final frame, I’m pretty pessimistic. But nobody needs that from me right now. I don’t even need that.

So here you have it. A little hope for redemption — for America. If I was a religious person, right now I’d say I’m praying for us all.

This Land

This week’s new Dustinland comic is a rewording of the famous folk song, This Land Is Your Land. Trying to keep some similarities with the phrasing and wording of the original, I updated it to speak to the anxious and divided country America has become. Not that we were ever some perfect nation of peace and love, but at least in my lifetime, things have never been this bad.

I guess I should give people some words of hope and encouragement now, but things are looking pretty grim to me. But… prove me wrong! How about that. When things turn out just fine because of your actions, you can laugh at the stupidest negative cartoonist. Does that inspire you to make a difference? Because that’s all I’ve got right now.

Last Chance

Well, everyone, I as say in this week’s Dustinland comic, this is either the beginning of a potential return to sanity, or the end of democracy in America — and possibly the world. If Trump holds on to the Senate and the House, it’s over. This country will fall into straight up permanent minority rule, where the Trumps and the Kochs will sit at the top as Fox News spreads their propaganda, voting is just a fake display to cover up the rigged elections (if it’s not already), and everything else will fall to shit. And of course, just like in all right-wing authoritarian societies, violent mobs of fundamentalist thugs will help make sure dissent is kept quiet. It’s already started — all of this.

To be honest, even if the Democrats take back the House, even if they take the Senate, even if they impeach Trump – we may not ever get our country back. Something has been opened up and exposed, something uglier than most of us thought was there, buried deep within America. Or maybe not so deep. But now we all know, there is such hatred, fear and ignorance here, maybe another civil war is not so far off. Because the right is living in its own reality at this point, and they will not accept facts that don’t support what they want to believe, and they will not accept compromise.

Garry Kasparov said something about how dictators win by bringing their supporters so slow, so far down into the filth with them, making them slowly defend worse and worse things… eventually, they can’t come back. They’ve gone too far. To admit it was all wrong… that they were part of the horror… that’s too much to deal with. Scary times. I never thought I would see this happen here. I guess we’re never really safe. It’s like what you can feel in the air during a blackout. Civilization is an illusion that is only a few bad mistakes away from complete savagery.

Well, good luck. To us all.