Today's Cul de Sac, December 9, 2010

It's been a while since Petey practiced his oboe, at least in the strip. I figure it's something he does every day whether it's mentioned in the strip or not.  Like the family eats dinner every night, but it's not funny enough to be worth mentioning. Hey, these people can't be funny all the time, you know. They've got lives of their own too.For earlier examples of Petey's musicianship, but not on the oboe, see here and here.

Today's Cul de Sac, December 8, 2010

This comes awfully close to "isn't that cute" territory, and would cross over with both feet if it wasn't so disgusting. I'd guess that Dill's never had a piece of clothing that wasn't a hand-me-down, so you'd think he would've noticed the crumbgutters sooner. And that's a word I'm hoping to foist on the English language in a big way, so watch for five solid weeks of crumbgutter jokes in early 2011.

Today's Cul de Sac, November 29 Through December 7, 2010

Jeez, you turn your back for a few days and look what happens.

 They haven't used the Dress-Up Corner at Blisshaven and this may be why.

 I had this all lettered and drawn except for Kevin's last balloon. I wrote half a dozen lines for him but nothing seemed to work until it struck me that he probably looks a lot like his dad.

Alice's eyes go all blank when she's being given a lecture, like she's in strategic retreat.

 The giant Sauron Claus eyeball seemed good enough to squeeze for a few more strips. It fits Petey & Alice's darkish view of Santa as a semi-disturbed, judgmental demigod with multiple personalities.

 I wondered about that thing too.

 I so rarely get Alice's hair right that I'm always glad when I do.

 In horror movies, the unseen is always the scariest.

 I hope this is the last mention of Santa's giant eyeball, I promise. Except for today's strip.

 There.

Today's Cul de Sac, November 18-28. But Not 21, 2010

My uncle Jack tells me that Cul de Sac is the first strip out of the gate with a Christmas joke. Yay!

I'd thought about doing a little arc about the Santa candle; maybe it gets left on Dad's car and melts or something. But I didn't.

Every Thanksgiving needs to be different. The simultaneous-talking word jumble was better here. And from the look of this strip and others, Mom must run a home business fixing tiny motors.

All Grandma seems to make is stuffing, deviled eggs and beet casserole. No wonder her growth was stunted.

This place may have appeared in an old Almanac "Restaurant Closings" cartoon.

Here's where I discover that bread tongs are hard to draw recognizably.

The alternate ending had Dad saying he was thankful no other diners had accidentally ingested Grandma's stuffing. Another story arc uninvestigated.

All those desserts was harder to draw than I anticipated. And who serves rice pudding at Thanksgiving anyway?

Ew, I hate to imagine what he's doing.

There's too much hatching on the slide.

Today's Cul de Sac, November 21 2010

Dill's winter hat is one of the few things I look forward to when cold weather rolls in. He was wearing it the first time I drew him, below, in March 2004.

Today's Cul de Sac, November 12 & 13 2010

 Here are two of Petey's notable pastimes in collision- picky eating and chewing his arm off. Somebody said that the ability to hold two contradictory ideas is the mark of a first-rate mind (F. Scott Fitzgerald, I googled it), which makes sense to me although it obviously doesn't at all.

Today's Cul de Sac, November 14 2010 and Tellingly, April 17 2010

 No comment, except to say such laziness is shameful, and I'll say it again in 7 months when I use Dill's brothers' skateboard ramp for the third time.

Today's Cul de Sac, November 9, 10, 11 2010

 I have no idea where this is going, but Viola needed to fit into all this somehow.

This is an oblique shout out to my friend Norm Feuti who draws the wonderful strip Retail. Originally, the salesman was named "Norm Grumbels" after the department store in Retail, but it got changed. Norm Feuti is nothing like the character here portrayed, though I'm sure he's had customers like dis guy.

And this is just in answer to the above strip. Petey and Andre each get a chance to present their comic book Platonic ideal.

Today's Cul de Sac, November 8 2010

What a cheap joke! I'm kinda embarrassed for Petey, and for his father for the easy set up.

Today's Cul de Sac, November 7 2010

I've wanted to do a strip with a cartoon by Petey for a while, though I had no idea he'd be inspired by Waiting for Godot. And I wish he wouldn't draw so much like me.

When I steal from Samuel Beckett, this is what happens-

Today's Cul de Sac, November 1 Through 6 2010

Race you to the end of the week. Ready? Go-

This was originally the idea for the previous Sunday's strip, recounting Petey and Andre's somewhat disastrous Halloween, but that left Alice out of the picture. So a little tweaking and it's all told in flashbacks.

Not much of a joke but it sets up the week. Please take a moment to admire the crosshatching.

 Oh, I love Sharing Time! It's so fraught with drama. I'd like to know more about Kevin's stick.

 Alice seems uncharacteristically ill at ease in the second panel. Kevin's cat 'on a vacuum cleaner video was inspired by my friend Craig Fischer's favorite video "kittens on a Roomba". As Craig is a professor of film studies and English I trust his taste in such things.

 And I love it when Alice gets forcibly escorted offstage. But the thought that Nara brings a new duck-shaped potato to every Sharing Time is the peak of the week, I think.

Petey's bedroom is where most of Alice's Autopsy of the Day's Events take place. You may have noticed that Alice the Pangolin's right eyeball was coming loose a few days ago.

Today's Cul de Sac, October 31 2010, and Yesterday's Too

I drew the Sunday, below, about a month ago when I hadn't yet figured out what Alice was going to want to be for Halloween. I knew she'd started with a pangolin but didn't know if that would change or not. Knowing she was sick on Halloween I then wrote the dailies up to it which, given the strip's random nature, wasn't too hard.

Today's Cul de Sac for Like the Last Two Weeks

Let's see, where were we?

Ha! Well, that's pretty funny, I guess.

I don't remember this one at all.

 Hey, it's gettin' crowded in this strip!

 Okay, now we're getting to material with some real weight to it. This now becomes the standard source for No Duh/Big Duh disambiguation.

Mom's final line is a little thin, but the strip had advanced the plot just enough to make its point and then suddenly the deadline loomed and somebody had to say something.

 This is based on a Washington Post Magazine Cul de Sac from 2006, where Petey was first planning his Halloween costume. I pretty much traced the fourth panel. My favorite part is Petey's redeye in the fourth panel.

And Alice's method of spotlighting candy-disbursing adults seems sensible to me.

A bonus enlargement for the nearsighted.

 Dill's line is my favorite bit of the whole week.

 Note the missing word "like" in the last line. Sharper eyes at Universal Press caught its absence and neatly inserted it, sparing us the inevitable global reader outrage.

There's a corn maze not too very far from where I live that features a different shape every year. To find your way through it you have to answer questions at forks in the path, making a learning experience for all concerned. Which sounds like it'd diminish the fun a bit.

 I like the leaves blowing around in the last panel.

 Petey's pumpkin inspired my friends Libby and David Hagen to carve a similarly pokerfaced Jack O'Lantern to crush the spirits of their trick-or-treaters.

I can feel my soul shriveling just looking at it, and isn't that what Halloween is all about?

 Twenty bucks for parking! I'm scared already.

 Drawing a corn maze was harder than I thought it'd be. Looks more like a giant broccoli-corn hybrid.

 Corn smut shows up so rarely in the comics these days. The corn here is slightly better than the previous strip.

 And the werewolf was a lot of fun to draw. A reader on GoComics thought his nametag said "Stan" and I wish I'd used that instead of "Staff."

Well, this doesn't bode well for Alice's Halloween trick-or-treating chances. Cue dramatic cliffhanger music