Children at Play: A Cul de Sac Collection Volume 2

We Washington Post readers are lucky enough to see Cul de Sac daily and get a bonus weekly satirical cartoon from Richard Thompson, so the excellence of this collection was no surprise to me. Richard Thompson combines a surreal view of the world with a sense of humor on the order of Far Side AND a set of believable child characters. If you can deal with Stewie on Family Guy being far more articulate than a baby should be, you can deal with the vocabulary and insights of these kids, who are much funnier and less nasty. Petey Otterloop (last name a DC joke)is an all-purpose neurotic kid, while his sister Alice is a much more typical child, albeit an articulate genius child. Their parents are funny too, not clueless - AND we get to see their heads, unlike in Peanuts. Thompson is funny and insightful and uses perspective and line weight in amazing ways. Great text, great characters, amazing drawing, and good insight - what more do you want? Possibly the sweetness of Calvin and Hobbes, which most emphatically is not here. But Thompson isn't mean, either.

This is a comic book about a Mom, Dad, son Petey, and daughter Alice. Alice is in pre-school, Petey is in grade school, and their parents react to the odd things going on with the kids. Petey is neurotic to the point of wearing 4 towels to cover up at the beach. He is such a picky eater that when his mother makes 5 bean salad, he has to separate the beans before he eats it. The main character is Alice, and as a pre-schooler, she has a lot of issues, such as playing with toys until she gets stuck in a corner, getting her hat wet at the beach, an older brother who tells her things like in the fall, trees get blasts from Mother Nature's Magic Bazooka and the leaves turn brown. She has a lot of concerns about what kind of bandage she has and whether or not her dress is itchy. This is a great reminder about what was important when you were a little kid. And it's very funny, too, in a G-rated kind of way. Your kids may not get why some of this stuff is funny, but you can let them read it.

I believe you will really enjoy the humor of the Cul de Sac comic strip. It is very reminiscent of the Baby Blues comic with the exception that these preschoolers in this book having a more sarcastic mature edge. The mother is a little out there, the 4 year old daughter is very cute and intense, with a picky brother scared of almost everything. The father is also around to give commentary on the madness that goes on in his family. If you have never read this series you are missing some laughs. I found this book delightful and I believe you will to.

This comic strip is in the same class as "Peanuts" and "Calvin and Hobbes". The cast of characters are largely children who speak like adults who live in a suburb and deal with daily life. The humor is consistently good, and is occasionally outstanding, frequently delivering multiple jokes in one strip. Situations described in the strip come largely from ordinary life, and invoke feelings besides humor. The style of the artwork is also quite pleasing. While much of this material will be enjoyed by children, some will be appreciated only by adults.

Cul de Sac is a wonderful comic strip created by Richard Thompson filled with delightful characters. The main character is four year old Alice Otterloop who has a vivid imagination and loves to dance on manhole covers. Petey is Alice's older brother who loves to read comic books, tell Alice tall tales, and is not happy about his oboe lessons and recitals. Other characters include Alice and Petey's parents - mom is a stay at home mom and dad drives an impossibly small car. Alice's friends Dill (who is slightly eccentric with unseen in the strip but infamous brothers) and Beni who likes to play with tools like hammers; her preschool teacher Miss Bliss who doesn't always live up to her name; and Alice's classmates notably Marcus whose mother scrapbooks his every move. Petey is tormented by the old-for-his-age Ernesto, who Petey first thought was imaginary, and Viola who likes to call him Petey Potterpoop. I love this collection of Cul de Sac comic strips. When I first started reading the strip I didn't like it, but the more I read the better I liked it and now I'm totally hooked. Creator Richard Thompson really captures the imagination of a child and does wonderful things with it. Thompson has fun with several recurring themes - Alice's father's small car; Petey's comic book obsession; Dill's brothers; Petey's outrageous stories; Petey's chewing his arm when he is stressed; family trips to the beach or pool; the uh-oh baby - and no matter how many times he returns to one of those themes he makes it seem fresh. "Children at Play" is a collection of both the daily and Sunday strips (the Sunday strips are in color). Some of the strips are stand alone and some have stories that take place over several strips (for example Petey's oboe recital, Alice and Petey trick or treating, Thanksgiving, and Christmas). All of the strips are funny but some are laugh out loud funny including the people eating shrub and a strip involving Mr. Otterloop's hair. Sometimes the humor is out in the open and sometimes it is more subtle - like when Alice says she thinks Quasimodo means "what a great wink" in French and Petey replies "your hunch is correct". Thompson's art work isn't great, almost crude at times, but it adds to the charm of the strip and he does wonderful facial expressions, particularly with the eyes. "Children at Play" is a delight.