America Unmasked

This week’s new Dustinland comic is actually a combination of two comics I wanted to draw. One is just a quick two-frame zinger, so if you wanted a late-night talkshow host kinda gag, you can just stop there. The second part is a broader strip about… well, sort of everything. Just the general mental state of everyone in Western society right now. And I know no one cares anymore or wants to hear it so I made it into a song and dance.

So now you know, and knowing is really not that much of the battle, I’d say maybe 10% tops.

Wrong Island

This week’s new Dustinland comic was inspired by my recent trip to Long Island. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not ALL like that — aka full of Trump trucks driving around with giant flags as if it’s still the summer of 2020. But there is quite a bit of that and it’s pretty depressing. And not only because I disagree with their politics. I think the real depressing part is that so many people are that angry all the time, that they need to literally drive the streets with flags designed to anger and intimidate their fellow citizens.

But yeah, we’re screwed. I actually drew a different final frame originally but edited it out. The original frame had a flag attached to my car, that said 1. You’re wrong 2. I don’t care 3. We’re all screwed, just deal with it quietly like an adult. Which is pretty much how I feel, although that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to make the world a better place. It just means odds are we’re doomed and for your own mental health, accept that. We’ll all be a lot happier, and maybe even pleasantly surprised.

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.

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.

Derision 2020

This week’s new Dustinland comic is about the tough choice ahead of us in the U.S. presidential election. And by tough choice, I mean the decision between perhaps not your ideal candidate in the form of Joe Biden, and Trump, an evil conman dictator autocrat using America’s enemies to dismantle our democracy for his personal financial gain and narcissistic and likely mentally ill ego. You know, it’s a toss up. Vote for a nice guy who means well and is a rational caring human being, or someone who’s never done a thing to help anyone in his entire life, and whose actions could risk the future of life on earth. TOUGH CHOICE PEOPLE!

Nation Without A Care

This week’s new Dustinland comic pretty much says all I have to say about the matter. I mean, I don’t think EVERYONE in the U.S. is like this, but enough people are to ruin everything for the rest of us. I don’t think it’s necessarily their fault — even the idea of something being anyone’s fault is a whole other philosophical wormhole. It’s really more about human nature combined with the American experiment leading to this current state of ignorant nightmare. Good times.

Now What

This week’s new Dustinland comic? Well, you know, right in the middle of an awful pandemic I thought we needed U.S. racial issues to finally boil over completely. Perfect timing for that. So here we are?! What to say? Well you can say a lot. And we do. We talk and talk… we type and type… But we can we do? What will we do and where will it get us? Those are the questions, and I don’t have the answers.

They’re Listening

This week’s new Dustinland comic is about how our kids are silently absorbing all the negative political conversations we have while they’re playing off in the corner, seemingly ignoring us.

Now, in the comic, I joke about being proud of my son’s actual real life quote, but in all seriousness, I find it concerning. I don’t want him to be as stressed out and negative as I am. But I guess it can’t help but seep in. Because they really are little sponges, and they’re listening, even when you think they’re not. And whether you’re a liberal, a conservative, or something in between (which I think is actually the truth for most of us), we need to protect our kids from the unrelenting negativity, hate and cynicism that’s dominating politics in the U.S. — and in much of the world, from what it sounds like. We need the next generation to grow up thinking they can make a difference, in their own lives, and to the world.

So yeah, as funny as it can seem, no more Dusty Downers…