Cul de Sac by Richard Thompson for May 29, 2023

A scholarly discourse on those who have gone before…

I love “Pre-Alicians”.

I first read the motto as “A little lemming”.

Of course, you do Alice…….

The Pre-Alicians is my favorite joke in Cul de Sac.

I think the Pre-Alician is running with scissors. Not a good role-model.

Interesting that this appears on Memorial Day…

The school motto, A Little Learning, seems to come from Alexander Pope’s 1711 poem, An Essay on Criticism. To quote more fully: “A little learning is a dangerous thing."

Also known as “millennials” …

Dill has qualms.

Well, whether a little lemming or a little learning, it’s a dangerous thing!

It’s interesting how people in fiction, especially dystopian novels, use terms like “The Before Times”. That phrase always sounded, to me at least, like a clunky translation from some foreign language.I like to imagine that if civilization ever breaks down for real, whenever somebody mentions the older days, somebody else will correct them and say “You’re not supposed to call them that! They’re ‘The Before Times’!”

Alice’s brother was one of the Pre-Aliceans

That kid may be a Pre-Alician, but he is no doubt running from an Alician ancestor.

You would, wouldn’t you Alice.

We must acknowledge that Kevin the Buckethead is the truthsayer, the shaman, the chronicler, the one who holds in his memory the legends and lore of the Blisshaven tribe. Alice, not to be outdone, has her own name for the Before People. She dubs them the Pre-Alicians, a most unforgettable monicker, especially since it incorporates her name!

Also called Early Child.