2021: How It’s Going

This new Dustinland comic is my take on the “How it started, how it’s going” meme but in comic form. I kinda hate doing a comic based on a meme but I am actually busy working on another comic project and I have a day job so this two-panel format really is working for me right now.

But I do agree with the sentiment. Funny how quick that whole yay 2021 thing went away. I think I had a nice 5 days or so.

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.

Negative Diagnosis

Wanted to get this new Dustinland comic out there quickly before there’s an alien invasion or biblical plague or some other massive insanity that would make whatever I drew two days ago incredibly irrelevant.

And it was hard to have an original take on Trump getting COVID. But after a bit of thought I figured it out. The most interesting—or disturbing—part of this whole thing is that we can’t even all agree whether he even has it or not! That’s how insane life has gotten in this country. Maybe in this world. Who knows anymore. Who knows?

CONvoy

This new Dustinland comic is about how there’s a Trump CONvoy coming to my town soon. Maybe tomorrow. Not sure. Supposedly it’s a “back the blue” convoy but we all know it’s just a parade full of brainwashed fascists for Trump, just waiting to unload their guns in the name of Q. So I churned out this quickie strip just to remind people to not play into their game, don’t meet them with violence, be peaceful, hell, maybe even ignore them. And vote. Let them have their truck and boat parties. The only thing that matters is that we vote out their criminal leader before the year is over, and Moscow Mitch with him.

Naustolgia

This new Dustinland comicis about having nostalgia for the 90s. But the dumb kind of pop culture nostalgia that fills the Buzzfeeds of the web, although I put some of that in there for the funnies, but nostalgia for an era before 9-11, before Trump, before social media… a time where your biggest worries were personal and petty, not global and apocalyptic. And that’s not to say there weren’t awful things happening in the 90s. It’s just that on one hand, we weren’t quite as aware of them, and on the other hand, they didn’t seem to be threatening the entire fabric of our society.

Unqantifiable

This week’s new Dustinland comic is about the QAnon conspiracy, which is essentially a massive troll effort meant to destabilize America. On one hand, this is obviously absolutely frightening and depressing, but on the other hand, I think it’s more important to examine the state of our country and discuss why so many people were in the kind of mental state that this sort of madness would appeal to them. Because this is the real problem — and it’s a big one without a simple answer.

Escape

This week’s new Dustinland comic is about escaping. Literally and physically. Physically, leaving the city, or even your own cramped four walls you’ve been seeing over and over for so long. Mentally, escaping the same confines but in a different way… but also escaping what’s in your mind — Covid, Trump, all of it. But it seems that no matter what you do, something follows you. You can’t fully escape. You can’t just leave the world’s problems to everyone else. But how do you find the balance? How do you do what it takes to stay sane, but stay involved enough to make a difference?

Denied

I drew this latest Dustinland comic in response to Trump’s recent trolling of Greta Thunberg, which she did handle amazingly well and in a very clever fashion. Still though, I do think nothing gets me going as much as this. The red hats may say I am now “triggered,” which they think is hilarious. Yes, they think it’s funny that people like myself and Greta and hundreds of millions of other people around the world believe in science and don’t want to see all life on Earth extinguished as the planet turns into a miserable burning hellhole due to our selfish, shortsighted activities. HAHA those wacky liberals!

I mean, really, on one hand, I just wonder how stupid these people could possibly be. But it’s much more than that. The truly scary part is how brainwashed Trump supporters are. While of course, these days, everyone has their own little bubble to hide in, the MAGA bubble seems much more dangerous and detached from reality — which is how you even have farmers saying “well, the weather is getting really odd these days and messing up all my crops, but I still don’t believe in global warming.” Which leads to the biggest concern over this issue — it’s just too big. It is so big, so scary, so sci-fi apocalypse, people don’t want to believe it. And as we are seeing right now, people choose to believe what makes them feel better.

So yeah, as we’re facing the biggest threat to civilization mankind has ever seen, millions of people are choosing to respond by pretending everything is okay, we don’t have to change a thing, and while we’re at it, let’s blame all our problems on people from other countries. Good times, everyone. Happy holidays!

Let’s All Be Fwiends

This week’s new Dustinland comic was about Trump supporters and how to relate to them, although really it’s just a clever way of mocking them. I find they respond better to this sort of thing. When you get serious with them, they just try to piss you off because that’s what they enjoy most. That’s really their ultimate hope from the Trump presidency: piss off liberals (and keep away the brown people).

But yeah, jokes. It’s sad the best way to respond to people during a Constitutional crisis occurring in the midst of a worldwide environmental catastrophe threatening all life on Earth, but if you have a better idea, let me know.