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krpalmerSome positive recommendations on "comics news sites" got me interested in a newspaper comic strip called Cul de Sac still not that long ago, and I added it to the short list of comics I read through their online sites. I am a little aware of all the comics available online, even recommended there, that I don't get around to reading, but Cul de Sac did stand out even in what can seem, from the way some people dwell on it, these later days for newspaper comic strips. Its art had a lot of character as compared to what can seem the "usual" uncomplicated linework and its characters were entertaining in varied ways, but its run was tragically brief when its artist Richard Thompson developed Parkinson's Disease and couldn't draw any more. Some time after having bought the first collection books of it but then not quite keeping up with news of them, I happened to hear a boxed set of "The Complete Cul de Sac" was available, and asked for it for a Christmas present.
The set began with an introduction by Art Spiegelman making the "we weren't supposed to get such a great comic strip so late in the game" point I've alluded to and then included a sampling of the painted comics Richard Thompson drew for The Washington Post Magazine (in which the characters lived in a suburb of Washington, D.C.) before reaching national syndication (where their location of their suburb was pretty much indeterminate). This let things develop and solidify for when the daily strips joined the colour pages (although those Sunday pages now have to be drawn small enough that there were two of them per page, which sometimes threw off the pacing when the dailies led into the Sundays). As I've sort of implied, one of the things I found appealing about the comic was all of its characters, from the four-year-old Alice Otterloop and her fellow preschoolers at the Blisshaven Academy with their varied "comic strip kids" outlooks on life, to her older brother and bundle of neuroses Petey (there's a sort of "write what you know" quality to his reading comics such as "Little Neuro," about a boy who never gets out of bed), to the added gags and subtle extra perspectives provided by their parents. Petey gradually collected some acquaintances and actual friends, which was perhaps the most obvious example of the strip continuing to add to itself. Thompson provides lots of self-depreciating commentary to the comics, including two references to Studio Ghibli films.
Getting the sense that Thompson was struggling with the artwork in the last year of the strip or so (there was a whole month of fill-in cartoons from guest cartoonists) did lend a sense of sadness to the conclusion of the set, but beyond that I suppose the biggest complaint I have with the collection is that, while the box it came in is solid and impressive, the two volumes inside it are just "trade paperbacks" rather than hardcovers. I do know there's now a "boxed paperback version" of "The Complete Calvin and Hobbes," but that did start out with hardcover books. At the same time, though, in reading Cul de Sac I did find myself contemplating that earlier "standout strip," how I don't turn to my set of it very often these days, and of some perhaps unreasonable feelings I have about its bursts of annoyance at the modern world (the term "misanthropy" even threatens to come to mind) and its more occasional bouts of sentimentality. It just so happened that when I went back to the first of my older, smaller collections, I found an introduction by Bill Watterson himself where he proclaimed the artwork held some scathing commentary on the awfulness of suburban architecture, commuter cars and minivans, and big-box stores, but to me the strip seemed more good-natured, even including Petey's minimalist "subtle yet scathing commentary on our consumer culture!" Halloween costumes. Art Spielgelman pointed out in the collection's introduction how Thompson stayed away from quickly dating "topical humour" (beyond Petey looking up his "Picky Eater" rank on a web site and, as I remember, one gag involving his possibly imaginary acquaintance Ernesto mentioning a smart phone app), which may even help the strip endure longer.
The set began with an introduction by Art Spiegelman making the "we weren't supposed to get such a great comic strip so late in the game" point I've alluded to and then included a sampling of the painted comics Richard Thompson drew for The Washington Post Magazine (in which the characters lived in a suburb of Washington, D.C.) before reaching national syndication (where their location of their suburb was pretty much indeterminate). This let things develop and solidify for when the daily strips joined the colour pages (although those Sunday pages now have to be drawn small enough that there were two of them per page, which sometimes threw off the pacing when the dailies led into the Sundays). As I've sort of implied, one of the things I found appealing about the comic was all of its characters, from the four-year-old Alice Otterloop and her fellow preschoolers at the Blisshaven Academy with their varied "comic strip kids" outlooks on life, to her older brother and bundle of neuroses Petey (there's a sort of "write what you know" quality to his reading comics such as "Little Neuro," about a boy who never gets out of bed), to the added gags and subtle extra perspectives provided by their parents. Petey gradually collected some acquaintances and actual friends, which was perhaps the most obvious example of the strip continuing to add to itself. Thompson provides lots of self-depreciating commentary to the comics, including two references to Studio Ghibli films.
Getting the sense that Thompson was struggling with the artwork in the last year of the strip or so (there was a whole month of fill-in cartoons from guest cartoonists) did lend a sense of sadness to the conclusion of the set, but beyond that I suppose the biggest complaint I have with the collection is that, while the box it came in is solid and impressive, the two volumes inside it are just "trade paperbacks" rather than hardcovers. I do know there's now a "boxed paperback version" of "The Complete Calvin and Hobbes," but that did start out with hardcover books. At the same time, though, in reading Cul de Sac I did find myself contemplating that earlier "standout strip," how I don't turn to my set of it very often these days, and of some perhaps unreasonable feelings I have about its bursts of annoyance at the modern world (the term "misanthropy" even threatens to come to mind) and its more occasional bouts of sentimentality. It just so happened that when I went back to the first of my older, smaller collections, I found an introduction by Bill Watterson himself where he proclaimed the artwork held some scathing commentary on the awfulness of suburban architecture, commuter cars and minivans, and big-box stores, but to me the strip seemed more good-natured, even including Petey's minimalist "subtle yet scathing commentary on our consumer culture!" Halloween costumes. Art Spielgelman pointed out in the collection's introduction how Thompson stayed away from quickly dating "topical humour" (beyond Petey looking up his "Picky Eater" rank on a web site and, as I remember, one gag involving his possibly imaginary acquaintance Ernesto mentioning a smart phone app), which may even help the strip endure longer.
no subject
Date: 2015-01-25 06:07 pm (UTC)Coincidentally yesterday when I was in Powell’s Books I was examining the new hardback compilations of Pogo, one of my all-time favorites. If I had the money to spare, those are the books I’d collect. However, I do have most of the strips among the 15 Pogo compilation books I have in my library. I also have a framed Pogo Sunday lithograph hanging in my house. They don’t make comics like that anymore.
no subject
Date: 2015-01-25 10:42 pm (UTC)It's possible, though, that I only really started thinking about Cul de Sac after it had gone away as I was reading through this collection; I've heard about how different a comic strip can feel when collected. Certainly, I've heard about Pogo, but just perhaps what little of it I have managed to see went over my head...