April 4, 2003
I think this is the strip that really brought together for me one of the major themes I wanted to explore with Dumbstruck, and it’s the strip that inspired the name of the comic. (It’s one of the first strips I drew, but I ended up putting in my back pocket when the war started.) Interactions like this would become the bedrock of the strips for the next seven years.
On a side note, I never did find out what was up with that dude in the background. He came in with the cop and left with him, and just lurked in the background the whole time.