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.

Thank You, Los Angeles Times!

For all those nice things you (specifically Charles Solomon) said about the Golden Treasury!

Wouldn't it be really nice if the Los Angeles Times ran Cul de Sac in the actual newspaper?

Today's Cul de Sac, September 23 2010 and Yesterday's Cul de Sac, September 22 2010

These two strips belong together so I thought I'd post them together, and also I didn't get around to posting yesterday. The whole point of Big Shirley is to be large and implacably unthreatening. She's hard to draw too, as she keeps turning into a cat or a pig or a hedgehog if I get too enthusiastic with the pen. 

And please note that I drew her twice; no photoshopping a panel in from a previous strip. That's something I'd never do unless it was really, really convenient. Although I did have trouble drawing that first Big Shirley. I put her in deep shade and the whole panel became an amorphous blob of crosshatching. 

The lesson here is: next time Grandma gets a canary.

Today's Cul de Sac, September 21 2010

I kept monkeying with this trying to make it funnier. The dialog got shifted from panel to panel and simplified so that it would read as a joke-like artifact, if not an actual joke. That's one problem with doing a strip where the actual jokes are hard to identify; humor is so ineffable that I don't know when it's been reached and I keep monkeying with it. I do know that mayonnaise is funny, so a lot of it's even funnier (Titanic Mayonnaise- Haw!). And I know that "ineffable" sounds like a borderline expletive, so I'll try to slip it into a future strip with Ernesto in it.

Since that paragraph was thin and unproductive, here's an except from an upcoming Cul de Sac, where I sell out with some product placement.

Today's Cul de Sac, September 20 2010

As I was saying, Grandma is pretty much Alice all grown up and then some. Below is her first appearance, in a Post Magazine Cul de Sac from November 20, 2005, exactly four years and ten months ago. Anyone who's read the strip around Thanksgiving will recognize the various situations set forth as I've cannibalized them enough times to feed a couple dozen cannibals, if they ate comic strip gags. Wait, what?

I'll admit that Grandma is physically based on my own Grandma, though mine was much more lovable and fond of staying up all night reading, playing with her two large dogs and at least once making a large tray of deviled eggs. Which she did not then throw at traffic.

Today's Cul de Sac, From September 13 To 18, 2010

Here's another lightning round sprint through the week that was in Cul de Sac.

When I was a kid we had a couple of the Time-Life nature books, Evolution and The Mammals, and one of them had a photo of a pangolin that always stuck with me for no good reason. Pangolins are poorly represented in popular culture, which is unusual as nature is so limited and popular culture is so all-encompassing. So, needing a new animal for Alice's favorite-of-the-moment, I grabbed a pangolin.

This is all true, really.

So is this. Go outside and try it.

Alice and her Grandma have long had issues, probably because they're so much alike.

I like yards with knicknacks and ornaments, especially in a neighborhood where they don't fit in. To show rather than tell, here's a panel from an upcoming Sunday strip-

Today's Cul de Sac, From September 7 To 11, 2010

Here's a quick tour of Your Week Before Last in Cul de Sac:

The usual complement of puppet theater puppets seems fairly standardized. You get your king, queen, wizard, maybe a lion or witch or a clown. Which seems kind of limiting to the modern youth of today.

Another cheap jibe at clowns, who exist only to make us happy and not to give us the creeps.

I have, of course, extensive plans for Mr. Headfinger in future Cul de Sacs, most of them rather gruesome.

This is the Friday strip, which is by the vague rules governing daily comic strip arcs the point at which the plot reaches its peak of tension, assuming that nobody reads newspapers on Saturday. 

Which is a shame, as no one got to see this act of fickleness and betrayal. But, hey! Pangolins! All right!

Today's Actual Cul de Sac September 19 2010

At last, a post that's about a strip that's actually the strip in today's newspaper (where available)! And that's the problem; I hadn't realized when I drew this (at a table at the beach) that it would run on the annually tiresome Talk Like a Pirate Day. Arrrrgh! So it's an unintentional tie-in, which throws the randomness of Dill's dream a little off. I just meant to make it silly and fun to draw, the latter of special importance because I didn't have my lightbox crutch to lean on. Really,  you get so used to using a particular set of tools that it's almost paralyzing when you have to rough it a little bit. 

Dill's dreams have been featured a few times, usually in a Sunday strip where there's more elbow room for his unconscious.  Here's one from a year or so ago, and it's more of a nightmare.

Coming up- we try to bring ourselves up-to-date with the daily strips.

Today's Cul de Sac, No, Sorry! This One's from September 12 2010

Somebody has some catching up to do, and as usual it's me. But seriously, what more need be said about Ernesto? Except that he may possibly exist in a parallel dimension that he may some day rule, and not exactly as a  philosopher king. Ernesto Lacuna is the closest I've come to one of those Marvel multiverse things that allows an author to devise plots at will, no matter how silly or untethered, without consequence. From what I've read about Stephen Hawking's new book on the way the universe basically works, this is the way the universe works, so anything goes.

Next- all those missed days from last week. But not consecutively because I'm not into that whole linear thing any more.

A Final Crummy Commercial

This will be your final warning, thankfully. Today's the last day of SPX, and I'll be sitting on one of the hotel's strangely low chairs at the table across from the CBLDF spread, to your left as you enter the room, at these convenient times.

Sunday 12:30PM - 1:30 PM
Sunday 4PM-5:30PM

I'll have books, T-shirts and original art available. And at 2:00 I'll be on a panel called "Brave New Comic Strip" featuring the vocal stylings of Keith Knight, Marguerite Dabaie and your host, Mike Rhode. It may change the future of the medium, hopefully for the better.

Third Time's the Charm

Today is the third anniversary of the launch of Cul de Sac as a daily strip, courtesy of the fine folks at Universal Press (who just picked up a strip called "Peanuts" that I've heard nice things about).

The only sensible reply to this is, How nice- where's Today's Cul de Sac with commentary?

Another Crummy Commercial

Those nice people at SPX have kindly offered a nomadic band of cartoonists, including me, the use of a table to sign things, sell things, and sit at when our feet get tired. Below are the times when I get my turn, subject to change.

Saturday 3:30PM-5:30PM
Sunday 12:30PM - 1:30 PM
Sunday 4PM-5:30PM

I'll have books, T-shirts and original art available, and a bag of greasy carry-out food tucked surreptitiously under the table. So please come on by! Bring your tired feet and get our special 2% tired feet discount!

Today's Cul de Sac, No, Sorry, It's A Salute To Blondie

On the occasion of Blondie's 80th birthday, with best wishes from a comic strip who's not even 3, here are all the old Poor Almanacs that featured Blondie. 

Today's Cul de Sac, September 6 2010

The whole point of this was to draw something big and looming and monumental, which is hard to do in a puny little comic strip. And of course, medieval war machines are always fun to draw, even for us lapsed Quakers. Here's another looming war machine, from a Washington Post Book World illo for a book about Hans Blix, circa 2004.

Your Unnecessary Spot Illustration of the Day

I found this and I've got no idea what the subject was. Did Thomas Jefferson even go to the beach? But it eerily fits a news item about sharks being caught in the Potomac River, so here it is.

Today's Cul de Sac, September 5 2010

Finally, we're up to date. This was fun to do- the silly big box store, the overblown copywriting and such, but I wish I'd staged the final action differently. It might've worked better if Alice had stepped onto the napmat and plunged immediately up to her neck in it, and in the final panel Mom had addressed Alice (whose head was only visible), saying something like, "Let's keep looking, this napmat is too fancy." No big deal, except this is the kind of thing that keeps me up at night. It's a form of George Lucas syndrome.

Oh well. The whole thread count joke was stolen from an old Poor Almanack, this one a parody of Christmas catalogs. I append the whole cartoon below, so you'll get the full effect and so I can make this post longer with minimum effort.

Today's Cul de Sac. No, Thursday's, Friday's & Saturday's

Just to do some more catching up- Oh, boy! Puppets and dressing up in costumes! Both of these activities come standard with most preschools and I'm embarrassed it took me so long to mention them. My basement has an old puppet theater and a pile of costumes in it, ready to load onto the gypsy circus wagon whenever the economy hits that point where it becomes more lucrative to be an itinerant puppeteer than a newspaper cartoonist, which may be next week.

Really though, every preschool classroom I've set foot in has been furnished and supplied almost entirely by leftovers and hand-me-downs donated by parents. The somewhat terrifying preschool in Toy Story 3 had some of that, though the building and facilities were a lot nicer than the ones I've seen. Another appearance by Sofie (above); I've really got to figure out what her deal is, but shrouding her in mystery seems to work fine for now.

And for what it's worth, I don't think Petey's burgeoning social life is going to change him much, in case anybody was worried that he might suddenly turn normal.

Today's Cul de Sac. No, Tuesday's & Wednesday's-

When last we left Petey he was about to step into his 3rd grade classroom for the first time again (again because, of course, he's been stuck in 3rd grade since 2004, the physics of comic strip time dilation/expansion being what they are; but really, no wonder he's neurotic). I think we all know the staggering discomfort of that first entrance into a new classroom. It's the stuff of nightmares, if the stuff is made of your everyday cringe-inducing awkwardnesses. As Petey is so finely calibrated for these things of course his psyche's going to overreact and split in two. I just like the idea that the out-of-body Petey is the aggressive one.

The first time Petey multiplied was in the strip below from late 2005 (I think). Having been a soccer parent, and a pretty lousy one, I can attest to the part about mom not paying attention.

Reminder of Exciting Upcoming Thing!

On September 9th (this coming Thursday) I'll be signing copies of the Cul de Sac Golden Treasury at Politics & Prose along with the wonderful Keith Knight, who'll be signing The Knight Life: Chivalry Ain't Dead. For a small fee, we'll switch over and sign each other's book instead. There may be a talky thing beforehand, which I'll let Keith handle as he's vastly more entertaining than I am. More details here.

Next up, Today's Cul De Sac, and the day before's and the day before that's.

More Deadline Enstranglement

Here's the Happy Deadline Clown, instead of the Creepy Deadline Zombie.

Today's Cul de Sac, August 31 2010

Okay, yesterday's. My apologies, I'm wrestling with the a deadline zombie (below). More to come later, including an investigation of the Multiple Petey Phenomena. 

Today's Cul de Sac, August 30 2010

I felt bad about the Otterloops not getting a vacation this year so I squeezed one in. Their last two trips to Geek's Neck were much more extensive, in part because I've always found beach towns hugely entertaining places and fun to parody. In the early 80s I tried to put together a strip about a beach town called Geek's Neck, loosely based on some of the towns scattered along the Mid-Atlantic coast that I know, like Ocean City MD, or Rehoboth DE, or anything on the OBX. But it was a half-hearted attempt and I gave up.

And here's a Bonus Unnecessary Spot Illustration for Today, this one for an article about college kids trashing beach houses for Smithsonian Magazine several years ago.

Today's Cul de Sac, August 29 2010

Well, yesterday's. Several readers have rightly complained about the lack of 3-D viewing glasses on Mom and Alice in this strip. It so obviously spoils the joke and renders the whole thing illogical and confusing. In my defense I can only say, I forgot that the audience had to wear glasses for the 3-D effect to work  I've been to only one 3-D thing, an amusement ride with pirates in it and all I remember is a flat parrot inexplicably flying at me and the brief resultant headache afterward. Also, I was drawing this so close to deadline that the printers were loading rolls of newsprint into the presses even as I was putting ink to paper, leading to one of those exciting race-against-time montages of an inexorably spinning roll of newsprint cutting to pen scratching on bristol board, back and forth in quick succession, till Wham! the cartoon is finished, scanned, sent, distributed and arrives at the printers just in time to make the Sunday edition and anger readers by its lack of 3-D glasses. 

Baltimore! Today! Again!

I had so much fun at the Baltimore Comic Con yesterday I'm going back again today. As I was sitting at my table all day Saturday, this time I plan to get up and walk around more and take in the sights. If you're one of the sights there I hope to see you.

Today's Cul de Sac, August 28 2010

I got nothing to say, except to remind you it's Read Comics in Public Day, and that you should celebrate by going to the Baltimore Comic Con.

Baltimore! Today!

As I mentioned I've got a table at the Baltimore Comic Con for today only thanks to John Gallagher, the genius behind Buzzboy comics, in his Comic Book Diner Fun Zone. I'll share a table with my friend Shannon Gallant, and I'll have a pile of books- all three Cul de Sac collections & Richard's Poor Almanac- and the 2011 CdS calendar, various other merchandise, and original strips. So I hope some of you good people stop by and take this junk off my hands because, really, this house isn't big enough.

Today's Cul de Sac, August 27 2010

About 20 years ago PBS showed a filmed version of Jean Shepherd's antic short memoir Ollie Hopnoodle's Cabin of Bliss. Shepherd is, of course, the author of the collected works that was turned into A Christmas Story, and he had a long career as a writer, raconteur, radio & TV host and other things as interesting. Ollie Hopnoodle was about the annual family vacation to a lakeside cabin, and one bit was about the bee that annually invaded the family car on the way to the cabin, supposedly the same damn bee every year. In the TV version it was wonderfully staged: the late '40s car coming to a sudden halt on the country road and the four family members jumping out, most of them dancing around and swatting and the youngest taking off lickety-split down the road, away from the camera. The camera held on them for a little while and it became funnier as it went on, especially the youngest gradually disappearing into the distance.

Anyway, I remember that pretty vividly and I laughed when I thought of this strip. It's not real inspired, and when I make myself laugh it's usually a warning sign of lameness. But it did let me off the hook as far as thinking up the full title of Petey's comic book is concerned. If you get a chance to see Ollie Hopnoodle sometime jump at it, and read the book too.