Cul de Sac by Richard Thompson for June 12, 2019

poor Nadine… may she have a speedy recovery (so Petey doesn’t catch with whatever Viola may contract)

I knew a girl once who was prone to fits of the lahdeedahs…

Betcha Viola grows into a Tattooed Biker Chick!!

3 of those conditions are real (4 if you count the cold).

Only Petey could get the bends from a bath.

Of course you did Petey.

These two were made for each other

“It’s time to Beat The Reaper!”

This is one of the ones that went up on my refrigerator during the original run. (Also the one where Alice wants to visit the cheese that smells like feet.)

But I’m a creep, I’m a weirdo

What the hell am I doing here?

I don’t belong here

I would have loved to see Dr. House diagnose a case of the fantods!

I thought fantods were limited to the Sandwich Islands?

Is Petey beginning to open up?

Is “Liolalia” a reference to “Lio” by Mark Tatulli? If so this is the second within the last week by another cartoonist. The first I noticed was in Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller on June 6.

Thompson was a cartoon genius!

If you got a case of Didgeridoos, would you be blowing for weeks? ☺

Staying in the tub too long doesn’t give you the “bends”, it gives you the “prunes”.

I wonder if fantods was a nod to Edward Gorey…

Particularly attractive hand lettering in this edition, and of course Thompson always gets a boost in my estimation for his use of both capital and lower cases. In today’s strip he took the full advantage of the extra variety with the long and hilarious list in panel 2.

The galloping crud or the crawling awfuls. perhaps?

I hate it when my sheep rot; it makes their wool feel funny…

Liolalia is a nonce word made up to describe the condition of compulsively talking about the comic strip Lio. [faux Greek : λιολαλια]

Since Lio is a Greek form of Leo / Leon, or “lion,” one could reasonably think it a real word meaning the compulsion to roar like a lion.

The use of words that only you and a very small group of insiders can understand is idiolalia.

So to create and use words like Liolalia is to engage in idiolalia.

I think Viola has been spending entirely too much time reading old and current editions of the Diagnostic Manual.

As for Petey’s narrow escape at age 3: How Deep Was My Tub! (Starring My Hero.)

Viola and Petey are just perfect for each other.

Everything but childhood housemaid’s knee!