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.

SPX!

The Small Press Expo site has just put up the programming information for 2010! And look, there's somebody with my name on it! Even better, there are some of my favorite people listed, too many to repeat here as I'd leave someone out and feel bad. So take a look, mark your calendar, and show up ready to be entertained, enlightened and something else that starts with en-. Really, SPX is a good time!

Today's Cul de Sac, August 26 2010

In the rough for this strip the text for Loris's middle balloon ran on and on with the words getting smaller and smaller and it looked, I thought, real funny. But when drawing the final it became obvious that all those words wouldn't stand any reduction and it just looked messy and self-indulgent, so it got curtailed into shorter and less funny form. That's pretty much all these daily posts will be from now on: evasive explanations of how that day's strip was really funny until it got drawn.

In answer to the many, many queries I've received from both of you, yes, Loris and Andre will be in the strip from now on. Not every day! Andre's too big and Loris wouldn't hold still. I've been trying to expand Petey's end of the strip for a while to give him more room to socialize, and I like these two just fine and they're both fun to draw. Expanding a comic strip is always a dicey business as strips are fragile little soap bubble things, so I won't push it too far and pop it. Introducing all of Dill's brothers, for example, would tear the whole space-time continuum to tatters. Though that might be good for a one-time laugh.

National Dog Day

Today is National Dog Day, so here's an appropriate repost, this cartoon having run 4 or 5 years ago. I dedicate it to my friend Nick Galifianakis, who draws the best dogs around, and who just lost his beloved friend Zuzu.

Your Unnecessary Spot Illustration of the Day

I've been slack in posting these vitally irrelevant spot illustrations, so here's one from the Washington Post Magazine of about 13 years ago. The story accompanying the drawing dealt somehow with alcohol in politics and these two, Grover Cleveland and Calvin Coolidge, represented two extremes on the drinking-alcohol spectrum; most bibulous and most teetotal respectively. 

I'm pretty sure I stole Coolidge's head shape from a caricature by the spectacular Miguel Covarrubias, though it does have a proto-Peteyness feel that creeps me out some. And the handling of the watercolor is kind of soft and timid. But I do like the looks of mutual disgust that flash between the former presidents.

Today's Cul de Sac, August 25 2010

Here we have a teachable moment: "borborygmus" is the scientific term for "stomach growling" (plural borborygmi, pronounced /ˌbɔrbəˈrɪɡməs/; from Greek βορβορυγμός). It comes from the ancient belief that digestion was the purview of a grouchy dwarf named Borbory residing in the stomach. His grousing at the lousy job he had pushing food around your innards, instead of bowling with his cousins, was heard as a growling sound, as opposed to the more dignified thunder that his bowling relatives caused.

I think that's right; it's late and the mind wanders, y'know? Anyway, the Stapling Ceremony seemed like a good way to wrap up the whole Cartoon Camp story and gives everybody a chance to dress up. The kids might be dressed as their titular superheroes, though that undercuts the fact that Petey isn't a big fan of superheroes- he's more likely to enjoy Jimmy Corrigan or Pim and Francie. Which is not to say his taste is sophisticated, just grimmer than a taste attuned to the gaudy spectacle of superheroics.

By now superheroes are mostly beyond parody. Stuff like the Tick and Herbie Popnecker pushed the absurdity of the tights little world about as far as it could go while still being funny. But the actual genre is its own best parody. I'd originally used the name "The Kaboomerang Kid" in Andre's comic title. A quick googling let me know that Kaboomerang is already a superhero who throws exploding boomerangs, of course.

Publisher's Weekly Says-

Publisher's Weekly, for years the industry bible for news & reviews, has nice things to say about the Cul de Sac Golden Treasury (for which you'll have to scroll down slightly at the link). They even gave it a star, which, critically speaking, is comparable to a Happy Face Sticker for Work Well Done. My thanks to mighty Mike Lynch, whose blog is more informative than this one, for passing this along on the Twitter.

Today's Cul de Sac, August 24 2010

Looking at this now I wish I'd put in a little more background. It had some in the sketch, but I worried about the busyness it might inflict, what with the top-heaviness of all those words and the silly costumes to look at. And the vital importance of drawing the eye to that stupid, old-timey-looking stapler.

More later....

Today's Cul de Sac, August 23 2010

Petey's favorite distancing mechanisms were first mentioned back when he tried to wear it to his oboe recital in one of the old Post Magazine strips and again when he wore it to Thanksgiving dinner. I had a box of hats when I was a kid and whichever hat I chose for the day would define who I was that day. My favorite for a long time was an orange plastic helmet that said Dennis the Menace on it. I didn't turn into Dennis the Menace when I wore it, but it was a good looking hat. I also had an array of capes, most of which came from the towel shelf in the linen closet.

I haven't done much with a dress-up theme, a glaring oversight as dressing in silly costumes is a vital part of childhood. Except for the above, a strip that originally appeared in the Post Magazine and got reused as a Sunday. In one of next week's strips a Dress-Up Corner is mentioned at Blisshaven and that might be the beginning of a new whatchamacallit: a new "meme". If that's the word I want.

To reference another British movie, there's a character in The Snapper, a little girl in an extensive family, who appears in completely different get-ups in every scene. Including a drum majorette outfit and once with shaving cream all over her head. That made me laugh and stuck in my head as a useable idea for future whatchamacallit: future "homage". No, "theft" is the word I want.

Today's Cul de Sac, August 22 2010

Dill's Grand Tour of local places of interest. As happens too often, I didn't know how this should end when I started it. This leaves open all kinds of possibilities, very few of which are necessarily funny. Having someone else barge into the strip is always a good solutions; it enlarges the conversation, gives a sense of life & activity beyond the panel borders, and offers me an easy punchline when all the other characters may be all talked out.

Actually what this one mostly offered was a chance to draw some pretty simple still life-landscapes and only a few people, which is good when deadlines are nigh. Though drawing the great dirt was harder than I thought it might be. I'd forgotten it, but the subject of socks in trees was discussed previously in Cul de Sac as part of a visit-to-the-library arc, back when the strip ran in the Post Magazine. 

Today's Cul de Sac, August 21 2010

Cartoon genius Stephan Pastis, whose approach to writing Pearls Before Swine is an adroit balance of left and right brains, has talked about having a go-to character he relies on when the ideas aren't flowing freely. That is, a character who'll inspire him, who's personality is forceful enough that he or she will pretty much take over the writing chores. For Stephan it's Rat: of course it's Rat, the evil characters are always the most fun to write because they're the unconstrained ids who can get away with stuff.

I'm not sure I've got a real go-to character, but I've always got Petey and when he's lying on his bed reading and half-ignoring Alice's unwanted presence the writing is always pretty easy. And it's pretty fun to draw too. A few times earlier on I varied the perspective a little or showed the bed from the other side, but it usually works best shown as it is here. It's easier to draw and looks more iconic, "iconic' being a nice way of saying if you repeat an characteristic image often enough it sticks in people's heads.

Shapes and Colors at Amazon

There'll be a delay in posting Today's Cul de Sac. To make up for it here's a distraction- I've just noticed that Shapes & Colors, the third in the regular, non-golden-treasury Cul de Sac books, is up at Amazon. And it's got the Look Inside feature, so you can preview a few random pages. Including the foreword by  Petey Otterloop, who thinks the strip is Okay, but he's seen better.

Today's Cul de Sac, August 20 2010

Alice's final appearance as a family spokesman. I've finally figured out a resolution to her fish-slapping-bear obsession, though that won't happen till at least December of 2013, as I'm working that far ahead (insert sarcastic-laughter emoticon here, if there is such a thing).

Actually I'm nowhere near there, so if you'll excuse me I'm going to go finish a Sunday strip for this Sunday (not really! you can put that same emoticon here, only make it slightly more rueful). And to make matters worse, I'm going to close with a commercial message.

On September 9th 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.

Today's Cul de Sac, August 19 2010

Petey's world is suddenly larger and more populous than he's entirely comfortable with. But then, Petey's comfort zone is somewhat smaller than his own actual physical size, so it's easy to get him outside of it. There: that's what we've learned today. But we knew it already, so we may have wasted a day.

If I was home and had access to some older drawings I'd make this post be about paintings in cartoons, in this case their use as indicators of space. You'll note the two framed pictures of something in the background of panels one and two. They're both used as a simple way of identifying a flat interior wall and marking the depth of the set in this scene. See, for better example, the masterful Wiley's signature black-matted art hung so adroitly all over Non Sequitur.

 I get antsy drawing backgrounds; too much is confusing and too little looks lame. And interiors are harder than exteriors. It's easy to draw a patch of grass or a stray tree branch, but drawing a room? You draw a lamp and you have to put it on a table and suddenly you're drawing the carpet too and it's getting busy. But if you keep it simple and go with a blank wall or a strip of floor molding it's easy; for a strip featuring small kids I draw that all the time, usually with a nicely space-defining expanse of tile or wood panel floor. And a note to future researchers, please notice that when drawing a lower wall, as often as I can I put in an electrical outlet, both as a way of identifying that blank area as a wall and of introducing a potential hazard. So, there: that's what we really learned today.

Today's Cul de Sac, August 18 2010

Alice the family spokesman goes off-topic, releases too much info, is recalled for consultations by higher-ups. The idea of doing this as a press conference came to me when I realized that the Petey-Andre Playdate would be funnier off-stage, a clever cover-up for the fact I couldn't think of much for them to do that was funny. In this strip I like the crosshatching in panel two and the stray corn-popper in panel one. I regret not squeezing that popper into panel three.

And now an update from a previous post. I mentioned a scene in the movie Gregory's Girl and wondered if I remembered it correctly. Dan Halbert kindly sent me a screenshot and a fuller description.

Dan writes, "Gregory leaves for school (late). As he goes out his front door there's a mass of small children, and he has to step through them as he goes down the walk (and encounters more on small moving vehicles). One is also in a small tree. A short time later he is almost hit by the student driver his father in instructing." Thanks, Dan! My readers are the awesomest! They can screenshot rings around the readers of most blogs!

Remembering Elvis

This continues a tradition of running this on the anniversary of his passing, though I usually forget to.

Today's Cul de Sac, August 17 2010

 

So it looks like we've got a theme this week: Alice the Media Mouthpiece. Which seems to make sense, as Alice, in her natural state as an attention hound, would gladly exploit Petey's meager adventures if it'd bring her an audience. As in yesterday's strip, the fun in this was mimicking the language of the press secretary. The second panel as originally written had Alice giving out a thicker chunk of boilerplate, something like, "We currently await confirmation blah blah hopeful of a positive response in this matter blah blah something." I forget how it went (I shouldn't be so quick in tossing out roughs) but you get the idea. It was too much and it got expunged.

There's a scene in one of my favorite movies, Gregory's Girl, that I hold dear. The title character, Gregory, is a gangly Scottish teenager who lives in a kinda faceless suburban development, and there's a brief bit where he steps out his front door, I think on the way to school, just before his father accidentally almost runs him over with the car while taking driving lessons. And there's one shot a few seconds long of him standing in his tiny front yard surrounded by small squally children out playing, just a brief tableau of him looking lost and befuddled in the midst of all these feral toddlers. It's a scene that keeps popping into my head when I work on the strip as it seems emblematic of, I don't know, the collision of mutually ignorant worlds or some such thing. I haven't seen the movie in years and may be completely misremembering the whole bit, in which case I've just embarrassed myself and exposed my whole world view as built on a poorly recollected shot in an obscure movie.

This Seems Appropriate

From about four years ago.