When bad things happen
Originally published 3 September 2000

This is one of my favorite Sunday strips. It's talky, sure. But a lot of my favorites are. I just like words. And pointless philosophizing.

What's more, I like the idea that this is the sort of stuff Ozy and Millie talk about. As a kid I found a shortage of people who were willing to talk about this stuff with me. In some ways Ozy and Millie have the kind of friendship I wanted when I was their age. (In other ways, they draw heavily on friendships I actually did have--I don't know which is scarier.)

People point out sometimes that the kids in this strip don't talk like kids. Well, of course they don't--neither do the kids in Calvin and Hobbes, Peanuts, Bloom County, etc. It's a longstanding tradition in comics; I am a humble (ha) part of that tradition.

I think the reason for it is, we're not trying to capture how children act. We're trying to capture how childhood feels. And we use adult ideas and vocabularies to capture childhood traits like inquisitiveness, uncertainty and vulnerability.

Or maybe I'm wrong. But it does seem to work.

    home     index     search