'Boomeranger' the star of new comic
"Dustin" features a college grad who moves in with Mom and Dad. It begins Sunday.
Meet Dustin Kudlick, age 23, a college graduate who is unemployed and unmarried. His wobbly life compass has pointed him back home to live with Mom, Dad, and Sis.
It's a comfy life - for him.
The fictional 23-year-old is the star of a new comic strip, Dustin, which will be a regular resident of The Inquirer's daily and Sunday comics pages beginning Sunday. The strip is written and drawn by two longtime newspaper editorial cartoonists, Steve Kelley of the New Orleans Times-Picayune and Jeff Parker of Florida Today.
Dustin is part of a demographic group called boomerangers - young adults who move back in with their baby-boomer parents to save money. Kelley and Parker already have heard from readers who are glad to see a comic so relevant to their lives.
"There are a lot of people who have a Dustin living at home or who know someone who does," said Kelley, who when not drawing Dustin or editorial cartoons also does stand-up comedy.
Kelley, 51, began developing the strip about six years ago. It debuted in 54 publications in January and now is in at least 92 U.S. and Canadian publications.
"I think you can justifiably use the word hot," said King Features Syndicate comics editor Brendan Burford. "And it's not only the number of newspapers, it's some of the key, influential markets that have taken it - Philadelphia is one of them."
Boomerangers have been around for years, but the current economic troubles have swelled their ranks.
A study from the Pew Research Center noted that 10 percent of those aged 18 to 34 said the poor economy had forced them to live again with their parents. Pew also found that the proportion of adults ages 18 to 29 living alone dipped from 7.9 percent in 2007 to 7.3 percent last year - a phenomenon that also occurred after the 1982 and 2001 recessions.
Though Dustin's living situation is timely, the depth of the strip's characters and their interactions are a timeless portrayal of families, Parker and Kelley said.
Dustin is a good-hearted, likable loser who works temp jobs - he's been a meter maid, an ice carver's apprentice, and a golf-ball retriever - as he dreams about more grandiose pursuits.
"We always wanted Dustin to be very affable, a nice guy, sweet. We worked hard to have that look without him being a bum," said Parker, 50, who draws the strips after Kelley sends him the scripts.
Dustin's career-minded parents, Ed and Helen, love and suffer their son in equal measure - well, almost equal measure.
In one strip, Ed looks out the window at Dustin, who is leading neighboring kids into a balloon fight. With a toy sword in one hand, a water balloon in the other, and wearing an upside-down pot for a helmet, Dustin commands, "Positions, everyone!"
Ed's thought-bubble reaction: "If only those leadership and organizational skills could translate onto a resumé."
Kids - can't live with them, can't live without them. Can't live with them.
"People look to humorists to give them a vicarious voice with all the absurdities in the world," Kelley said. He's hoping that after reading Dustin, people's own thought-bubble reaction will be, "So that's why they call them the funnies."