Cul de Sac by Richard Thompson for May 01, 2012

Stinkbugs are actually really interesting, Petey!

Petey is frozen with fear of being stinkbugged. Barefoot Alice is cheerfully unconcerned except to help her weird big brother.This must be allegorical of something….

Until this strip, I never even heard of the stinkbug. I figure there’s a lot worse out there among the flying insects.

To the general public, they are a nuisance and nothing else, although I understand they are a bother to farmers. Pick it up and drop it in the trash. They don’t bite or chew on the scenery and they’re not dirty like roaches. They just “are”.

Here on the East Coast, they can be a pestilence to farmers. They have a proboscis that they insert into frruit and suck the juice out, so they are very destructive to apples and peaches. Their “stink” attracts other Brown Marmorated Stink Bugs. Homes have been severely infested by them, and there seems to be no “off-the-shelf” cure for them. If you crush them, they emit their foul odor. I usually pick them up in a tissue and flush them.

Cut the blue antenna wire!

My old neighborhood was overrun by feral cats. Once the cats took over, the local stinkbug population plunged.

I had never heard of stink bugs until I arrived in North Bay, Ontario. I was on a road trip and there was an infestation in town. You couldn’t go anywhere without stepping in them.

Petey, you have to start thinking about stink bugs as a opportunity, not as a danger..

it could be worse. he could be covered in kudzu beetles.

The good news is some of the larger birds are beginning to eat them.

Penn State researchers have developed a website http://stinkbug-info.org/. If you’re interested, check out this website.

head to Florida if you want bug problems. Cripes, they grow ’em big down there!

Could be worse — could be a Bombardier beetle, which, when disturbed, ejects a noxious chemical spray!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardier_beetle

I don’t like that they have no fear of landing on you. They’ve landed on my hand while I’m typing! Worse, in my hair. I don’t care who you are… a big stinky bug crawling in your hair will give you the willies. Fortunately I have my dog trained to eat them on command. She even leaps up and catches them out of the air as they fly by. Then her breath reeks for a few minutes… but at least that’s one less to breed.Ugh.

I’m glad to see you’re back drawing the strip, RT. Nobody does it as well as you do. I guess it’s hard to stay on model when the model is so loose. But the very looseness is what makes your work so great. In addition to the writing, of course.

I made a killing jar for them — a baby food jar with some rubbing alcohol in it. when I find one in the house, it goes in the killing jar. Dead within a minute. that way they don’t breed and release more of their ilk to destroy local fruit crops.