Tue Apr 1, 2008 — by Van Jensen

'Cul de Sac,' the Comic Strip You Need to Read

Richard Thompson mixes childish innocence and adult neuroses to perfection

I had all but given up on newspaper comic strips in recent years. My favorites (Calvin and Hobbes, The Far Side, Peanuts, etc.) had disappeared and every new innovative comic appeared online, not in the funny pages.

Then a friend pointed me to Cul de Sac by Richard Thompson of the Washington Post. Like many of the great strips, Cul de Sac features a young central character (Alice, in this case) who simultaneously looks at the world with the dreamy innocence of youth and the cynical sensibilities of an adult.

That balancing act is consistently funny on a daily basis, as Thompson finds the most creative ways to point out the lunacy of the world from both children's and adult's perspective. My favorite strip might be the one below, in which Alice's brother opines on the world of comic books:

So, I have a new newspaper comics strip. Maybe the "funnies" page isn't dead yet. Or maybe it is: I read Cul de Sac online.

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