Day by Day (webcomic)

Day by Day
Author(s)	Chris Muir
Website	http://www.daybydaycartoon.com/
Current status / schedule	Updating every day
Launch date	2002 November 1
Genre(s)	political

Day by Day is an American political webcomic by Chris Muir. The humor usually centers on four principal characters who had initially been presented as coworkers at an unspecified firm until the firm went out of business on December 25, 2007. Romantic relationships among the principals resulted in marriages and children, with one of the couples opening a small bar in the Florida Gulf coast town in which the strip is principally set. These characters (and their friends and family) remain center stage even though some strips focus on public figures and feature none of the main cast, in a manner similar to Doonesbury. The strip has a conservative/libertarian viewpoint, and often makes reference to political weblogs. It is a Yahoo! Pick in the "Comics and Animation" category.^[1]

Format

The strip is updated daily, including weekends. It usually follows a loose "strip story arc" throughout a given week. Except on Sundays, the strip is usually three colorized panels, comprising a combination of newly drawn art and a library of hand drawn elements that Muir has digitized and reuses. As with many newspaper comics, the strips for Sundays are larger and have more panels. Muir often depicts his female characters in sensual poses.

Muir has stated in interviews that by crafting the cartoons digitally, and using previously drawn faces, expressions, and body postures, he can react to breaking news by crafting a relevant comic and putting it up the next day, breaking or delaying the storyline.

Generally, the strip features a running commentary on political events with the characters interacting in a vaguely seen office setting. In addition, the author often shows a "Doonesbury-esque" White House strip with an unseen President talking to his staff. Muir has often used the same treatment to show goings-on at the United Nations and the New York Times.

The home URL was written vertically on the leftmost edge of the strip, beginning on May 2, 2003, running until the site's redesign in 2006. The comic itself has run since November 1, 2002, with a hiatus from September 12, 2004 to November 30, 2004. The large-format Sunday strips started in 2005.

Financial Model

Like many other web comics, Day by Day Cartoon is supported by a combination of contributions from readers (via PayPal, Amazon and other payment vehicles), banner advertising, and merchandise. In 2005, the strip became available for print newspaper syndication and was carried by the Hemingford Ledger, the Knoxville News-Sentinel, the North County Times and The San Diego Union-Tribune. In October 2007, Day by Day Cartoon discontinued service to newspapers. Also in October 2007, eBook compilations of Day by Day Cartoon became available for free.WOWIO: eBooks, Comics and Graphic Novels | Books Evolved

Characters

• Zedediah "Zed" Owens is a laconic, goateed product designer who is frequently worried that he may be over the hill. It has been revealed that he is a former Special Operations sniper, who has since been recalled back to duty in Iraq, where, as one strip revealed, he was actively hunting insurgents as a sniper once again.^[2] He proposed to Sam, and they married in Las Vegas.
• Samantha "Sam" Owens (formerly Samantha Flanagan) is a red-headed, cautious engineer, married to Zed. In 2006, it was revealed that her father is Irish and her mother (Kimiko Flanagan^[3]) is Japanese. She gave birth to twin daughters.^[4] While Zed and Sam are supposed to be centrist, they more often than not side with Damon, and both carry concealed handguns. Strips often centre about the generational aspects between the forty-something Zed and Sam and the twenty-something Damon and Jan.
  • Caroline Owens & Catherine Owens are Zed & Sam's twin daughters. Sam was recently pregnant again, but suffered a spontaneous abortion possibly brought on by the shock of seeing a severely wounded Zed in the hospital.
• Damon Thomas is an African-American conservative and a self-taught programmer. He has explicitly stated in the past that he was orphaned in early childhood. He frequently accuses the Democratic Party as a whole of being racist. When his beachfront home was razed by the town (in a commentary on Kelo v. New London), he began living with, and is now married to, Jan. They have one son.
• Jan Portago is an ardent liberal marketing director, who does not seem to understand how Damon can be both black and conservative. At some point after Damon moved in with her after losing his house, they began a romantic relationship, and have since been married. Prior to the beginning of their romance, Jan secretly went out of her way to prevent him from leaving their company.
  • Javier Luciano Thomas is Damon and Jan's son.
• M. Luciano de la Portago y Verrillo is Jan's father and an entrepreneur. When Damon took offense at the politics of the company's majority shareholder, he, at Jan's request, persuaded them to sell their stock so that Damon would not resign.
• Skye Flanagan is Sam's younger sister, introduced to the strip in June 2006. She is as liberal as Jan, if not more so. Facially, she resembles Sam, but she has brown hair rather than Sam's flaming red, and has a number of piercings and tattoos. She is happy for Sam and Zed, despite the fact that he's "some conservative guy".
• Suzi was a young intern who was openly attracted to Zed, despite the large age gap between them. (Zed did not reciprocate.) She left the company off-panel at some point in 2006.
• Naomi Rivka Levy is a private military contractor working in Iraq, who had previously served as Zed's spotter during his time as a sniper. It is revealed that Jan's father has hired her to keep an eye on his daughter while she is in Iraq, but Jan's obvious and undisguised disdain of her and mercenaries in general complicates matters. She is Israeli, as Jan seems somewhat shocked to note.^[5]
• Lieutenant Markos Anderson is a U.S. Army Infantry Officer in Iraq whose platoon Jan is embedded with. He is dedicated and takes his work seriously, reprimanding his troops for ogling Jan on numerous occasions, but also demonstrates a wry sense of humor when Jan's preconceptions about Iraq and the American military are made known.

References

1. ^ Yahoo! Picks > Entertainment > Comics and Animation > Comic Strips
2. ^ Day by Day Cartoon by Chris Muir :: July 21, 2007 Archives
3. ^ Day by Day Cartoon by Chris Muir :: November 5, 2007 Archives
4. ^ Day by Day Cartoon by Chris Muir :: November 23, 2007 Archives
5. ^ Day by Day Cartoon by Chris Muir :: July 16, 2007 Archives

External links

• Day by Day