Gasoline Alley by Jim Scancarelli for October 07, 2008

Well, the “Tom” of “Gretchen and Tom” is my own creation from the fanfic I wrote on the old TMS board, as is Gus’ lawn care business. Jim keeps drawing Gus and Kathleen as if they were nine or ten years old, even though they were born in December 1992. I decided to write something that showed Gus doing something a 14-year-old (in the summer of ‘07) kid might be doing, and mowing lawns to make extra money seemed like a good idea. Gus and Kathleen are twins, so a crush seems like a likely storyline for a 15-year-old girl. Hell, Greg Evans dragged out Luann’s crush on Aaron Hill for what, fifteen years? We last saw Eve being dragged off by the cops after she invited her biker friends to crash at Walt’s back in 2004 (before Gertie came along), so I figure she might be up for parole by now. “Skeezix and Nina have invited Walt and Gertie over for dinner” was the starting point for the storyline we’ll probably never see in the strip, no matter how old everyone gets.