The blog of Richard Thompson, caricaturist, creator of "Cul de Sac," and winner of the 2011 Reuben Award for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Today's Cul de Sac, September 25 2010 and Yesterday's Cul de Sac, September 24 2010

Minivans are not as fun to draw as cars. On various questionnaires I've seen, when cartoonists are asked what they most dislike to draw, the answer is often "cars", which I have to disagree with; I kind of enjoy drawing them up to a point. But minivans are too bland and amorphous in shape, just kind of rounded rhomboids with wheels. (The other subjects often cited as no fun to draw are "crowds", "machinery" and "horses' back legs" and I'll agree with all of those.)
On the other hand, it'd be fun to draw the strip in a Petey's Diorama style, and I might give that a shot. What would an autobio comic from Petey look like anyway?

A poster on GoComics asked where Petey gets all the shoeboxes for his dioramas. Strangely enough I had a small subplot about Grandma unloading a pile of shoeboxes on Mrs. Otterloop, enough to fill the back of the van, but I dropped it. Maybe I shouldn't've as it made for a nice bit of elaboration. God knows where Grandma got all the boxes; from a lifetime of buying shoes, I guess. And of course, she's a hoarder.

2 comments:

Bardowl said...

Aw, no comments yet? Well,we'll just see about that! I shouldn't think it'd be too hard for Petey to get a horde of shoeboxes. Besides his Grandma's stash, there are family members getting shoes, Petey's and Alice's classmates, parents' friends, other relatives, Peter's coworkers - I could go on all day, but will spare you, this time. Oh, hi again, Richard. We really appreciate your work.

Kevin S. said...

Petey seems to be about the age where he would be getting new shoes each month. At least that's how it felt when my sons were around that age.