It takes a global village

See it here.

Today's Dinette Set is a deliberately disorienting experience. Throughout the entire panel, questions fly at the reader fast and without answer. Who are the Voyd's and why do they need sympathy? Why is it easiest for Burl to put the letter in their mailbox on his way to work rather than doing it right away? If they can put it in the mailbox, why don't they just visit them and deliver it in person? Where does Joy believe they live? Where do they actually live? How did the Voyd's move across town without Joy and Burl noticing?

This last question is the only one with a fairly obvious answer. Anyone living in close enough proximity to Burl and Joy that they could hand-deliver mail would be expected to sneak away in the middle of the night without leaving a forwarding address.

Most curious, however, is the circular nature of the narrative. We start with a declaration that it is easiest to hand-deliver the sympathy card to the Voyd's mailbox. Verl does what she can to introduce a complication, the fact that the Voyd's have moved across town. But we end, essentially, right back where we began. Burl goes right by the Voyd's house on his way to work, making it only marginally less convenient than it was originally.

Which is the crux of the panel's commentary. The world is shrinking into a global village where physical distance is irrelevant. Conceptions of what makes someone a neighbor are changing along with the technologies which have caused the world to shrink. Examples stuck amongst the marginalia in support of this daring proclamation are luminaries such as the USPS, the grapevine, and Sprint Messenger Service.

The only marvel left in the panoply of marvels would be the knowledge that Burl and Joy have actually heard of instant messaging. So much so that one suspects "Sprint Messenger Service" is just an unfortunately fictitious name for an an actual physical messenger service. I say "unfortunate" because today, of all days, would be the single worst in which to make an IM joke.

You have marginalia:

• The sheer load of marginalia devoted to jokes about mail makes one suspect The Dinette Set harbors some sort of grudge against the post office or was outraged by the latest postal rate increase, whenever that happened. I find it hard to believe anyone thinks about the post office that much or mails enough letters for postal rates to matter.
  
• Anyone want to hazard a guess what the "to do" item crammed between the dialog balloons is supposed to say. For that matter, how about the 411 post-it.