Soup to Nutz/Rick Stromoski

The Nutz family will never be confused with the Waltons, the Partridges, or the Bradys. But you might confuse them with another family: your own. Soup To Nutz: The First Course is the first collection of comic strips featuring the off-kilter Nutz family, where the battle for the last chicken leg rivals the Battle of Bull Run and sibling "rivalry" is putting it mildly. The battling brood includes brothers Roy-boy and Andrews, their sister and middle child Babs, parents Roy and Pat, and their faithful dog Rosco. These six Nutz make up a family that is every bit as funny and screwball as their name implies. Roy-boy teases his younger brother by telling him that he became part of the family when they found him in the woods and adopted him. But his sister is quick to set the record straight: "Don't be silly, Andrew, you weren't adopted . . . Dad made you out of wood and a cricket turned you into a real boy." The irreverent humor of Nutz flows from the pencil of creator Rick Stromoski, whose research includes growing up the seventh member of a family of 12 children. That experience no doubt helped shape the humor behind what is one of the funniest up-and-coming strips on the funny pages today.