DARK SPOT ON THE FUNNY PAGES

Lio ©2007 Universal Press Syndicate.

There’s a new face on the Funny Pages these days, and I like it.

The strip is Lio, by Mark Tatulli. Drawn in a spidery style packed with fine detail, both its art and its humor are reminiscent of Edward Gorey and Gahan Wilson.

Lio is a little guy who inhabits a dark world - the world of a child’s perfervid imagination. He’s a little like the Haley Joel Osment character in The Sixth Sense, the main difference being that when Lio sees dead people, he will, like as not, run off to play with them. He revels in the surreal.

I’m the kind of guy who reads the funnies every day whenever possible. And Lio is one of a handful of strips that never fail to make me smile...or laugh out loud.

And it’s not just because the little bastard thinks like I do.