HENRY: I truly love comic strips and the art of it and how you can get a feeling and a joke across in seconds. The world of childhood depicted in the strip is a timeless, outdoorsy one reminiscent of strips like "Calvin & Hobbes" and "Cul De Sac," both of which Henry cites as influences. Wallace's friend Spud is a ball of anxiety and indecision, and his friend Amelia is a tough-as-nails troublemaker. WELDON: The tone of the strip is gentle but not toothless. And I'd like the parents to get a good read out of it 'cause they're the ones buying the books, after all. You know, I don't want it to be so, like, sappy, kiddy. WILL HENRY: I'm trying to hit that sweet spot where kids enjoy it, but parents will also enjoy it, too. He runs a gourmet wine and cheese shop in Jamestown. It's a lot like Jamestown, R.I., where the strip's creator, 33-year-old Will Henry, churns out 365 strips a year for a growing audience which devours them in newspapers, online or collected in book form. Mostly we see the world of the strip through Wallace's eyes, a sleepy East Coast beach town called Snug Harbor where the streets are lined with ice cream shops and the beaches are dotted with rocky tide pools. There's Dad, a fisherman, Mom, a gardener, their almost feral young son Sterling, who never met a bug he wouldn't eat, and his older brother Wallace, a rambunctious, imaginative kid big on exploring. GLEN WELDON, BYLINE: Think "Peanuts" if Charlie Brown were less of a mope or "Calvin & Hobbes" if Calvin weren't a bit of a psychopath. NPR's Glen Weldon explains how this comic strip is shaking things up at a time when the funny pages are shrinking.
It is already appearing in more than a hundred newspapers. The funny pages in the newspaper - they're kind of visual comfort food, the same characters day after day, which is why the success of a new comic strip called "Wallace The Brave" is unusual.
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