This Modern World

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This Modern World is a weekly comic strip/political cartoon by Tom Tomorrow AKA Dan Perkins. Appearing in various alternative newspapers around the US, and online at Daily Kos, the strip takes a very very liberal look at current events. Often stars Sparky, an acerbic sunglass-wearing penguin, and the Very Nice dog Blinky.

Tomorrow has also written a (theoretically non-political) children's book The Very Silly Mayor.

The strip's official site is here.

Tropes used in This Modern World include:

• Animated Adaptation: A Web Animation during the dot-com boom.
• Author Avatar: Sparky.
• The Blank: In one series of strips, one of these runs for president.
• Cool Shades: Sparky's eyewear.
• Crap Saccharine World
• Cut and Paste Comic: Tomorrow uses/traces over vintage clipart to create the strip's look.
• Earthshattering Kaboom: Depicted more than once.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Plutocrat Pete and Tea Party Tim both hate taxes, but Plutocrat Pete doesn't want to force the government to default, and sees Tim as a "nihilistic moron willing to crash the entire economy."
• Everything's Better with Penguins: Sparky.
• Kill the Poor: One strip shows a post-apocalyptic world where the poor are fattened up on the available food and eaten by the rich.
• Straw Character: Biff, the strip's resident Republican.
• Straw Hypocrite
• Take That: Republicans and conservatives in general.
• Wall of Text: Lampshaded by the artist on more than one occasion.