Customer Reviews

Cul De Sac: This Exit

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I love good comic-strips-- there's just not a lot of good comic-strips to love lately. "Pickles", "Get Fuzzy", "Pearls Before Swine", "Dilbert", "Bizarro", "PVP"...

And top of the list: CUL DE SAC.

This is a brilliant, hilarious strip with wonderful drawings-- some of the best art (and cartooning craft) appearing on the comics page today. Alice and her neurotic brother, Petey, each have "rich inner lives" (as my wife would say), and the world is always much more interesting when seen through their eyes. Absolute genius! You ask me, the fact that Bill Watterson wrote the introduction-- ASKED to write it, I've heard-- says it all.

Big Bonus in this Book: about 50 pre-syndicated Cul De Sac "Sunday" strips reproduced from Thompson's hand-watercolored originals! Stunningly beautiful!

If this strip isn't in your newspaper-- get it! If you don't own this book-- buy it! (And believe me-- it's a steal at this price!) Let's make sure this strip gets all the attention and recognition it deserves so Richard Thompson can tease and torment his characters (and entertain us) for decades to come!

The first thing you notice about Richard Thompson's Cul De Sac is its wonderful art. Expressive and unique, this strip looks like nothing else on the comics page. But what makes the strip truly special is its writing. It is a real breath of fresh air- especially when you compare it to what we see elsewhere. The children in Thompson's work are not the miniature joke machines of sit- coms, nor are they adults in kid suits or even a middle aged man's sentimental idealizations of youth. Thompson's characters are instead real children who think and interact with the world around them in ways that most of us forgot about somewhere along the road to adulthood. But Thompson remembers and best yet he somehow manages to make it all laugh out loud funny. This is a wonderful book.

This collection of Cul de Sac comic strips is full of brilliant use of the comic form, fresh takes on the comedy of family life, and laugh out loud moments. My 13 and 10 year old children enjoyed it as much as I did.

Cul De Sac is a newspaper comic chronicling the daily adventures of the Otterloops as seen primarily through the eyes of Alice, the family's 4-year-old daughter. While the basic idea of drawing a comic strip about a suburban American family is far from original, Thompson's interpretation of the genre is fresh and inviting. All of his characters have their own unique personality, each drawing you a little further into the microcosm he has created. The art is slightly crude in an attractive, practiced fashion that compliments the author's quirky sense of humor.

The first section of the book is devoted to the watercolor works created for a run in a magazine that predate the comic's introduction to the funny pages while the second moves on to the syndicated dailies. While the plot regression experienced when moving from section to section is slightly startling, I found I enjoyed being reintroduced to Cul De Sac midway. There was a bit of repetition and I find the lack of a page to separate the sections worrying (not everyone will read the forewarning in the forward, methinks) but, all in all, the transition wasn't at all bad.

Blisshaven Preschool's guinea pig, a most highly aspiring character, was one of the "secondary" features of the strip that truly pulls the reader in and gives the world in which the Otterloops meander a bit more depth. Alice's 8-year-old brother was another such character, punctuating his family's otherwise glass-half-full lives with his cynicism and his perpetual sense of impending doom (which he seems to have accepted at a young age).

The most intriguing and appealing characteristics of this comic are not the "main jokes" of each strip; you have to look slightly deeper for the whole picture. From Alice's preschool to the local shopping monstrosity, Thompson subtly paints a backdrop of suburban America that is both entertaining and horrifying. The way Thompson portrays the adult characters going through their day is full of an understated feeling of blissful ignorance. They look to sense nothing amiss as they struggle through intimidating big-box stores and drive their tiny cars to work, navigating the modern world as though it was the most natural way to live.

Overall, I highly recommend this to other lovers of funny, intelligent comic strips and will surely be loaning my copy out to friends and family in a dastardly attempt to hook them as I have been hooked.

Amazing writing. Amazing art. This and Lio are the best comics I've seen in many many years. I wish I had this guy's talent.

Richard Thompson honed his chops by doing Cul de Sac as a Sunday-only strip for the Washington Post for years before a syndicate approached him to do a daily. This book collects the first year of the daily strip as well as an assortment of the Sundays from the Post, in lovely color. The suburban family strip is always amusing as the Otterloop family reacts to modern life including preschool, musical recitals and trebuchets. Everyone who likes comics should give or get this as a Christmas gift.

Wonderfully expressive drawings. This comic appears in our newspaper and it's one of the things I look forward to every day. How delightful to find a bunch of strips collected into a book. Gives a great kid's view of the world. Am looking forward to the next book!

Cul de Sac is my new favorite comic strip and Petey is my newest hero. I want a tee shirt of him saying, "I hate being the voice of reason." Obviously, Alice is the breakout star of the strip, but, c'mon! 17th Pickiest Eater in the World! That has to count for something!

This is a great strip. Brilliantly written, well-observed humor and outstanding artwork. That Watterson guy who wrote the introduction knows what he's talking about.

I cannot, litterally, overstress how good this comic is. It is funny, clever, and beautiful to look at. I have really gotten tired of the current batch comics, and you can only reread "calvin and hobbes" and "Pogo" so many times. "Cul de sac" is something currently unequaled in comics. It seemlessly brings together beautifully simple art and a great story. Four year old Alice Otterloop and her friends Beni and Dill go to Blisshaven kindergarten where everything from the class guinea pig to a trip to the library becomes a wittily funny adventure. The other main character of the strip is Petey a nervous nine year old who seems to be minorely OCD.
The comic does not pull any of the cheap tricks I've come to expect from today's comics (bad puns, stories that are not ever wrapped up, political and media referances, etc.). Instead Richard Thompson gives us something reminiscent of such comic greats as "Calvin and Hobbes": pure, great humor. The only negative I can possibly find is that Richard Thompson gives us so many jokes per comic that I worry he could run out. So far, So good!!

A stunning piece of work! Wonderful drawings combined with a great sense of humour make this a regular re-read.