Natalie Dee

Cake for breakfast? You know you've thought about it — this web comic calls you out and tells it like it is

By Caralyn Green
Published: December 11th, 2006 | 12:08pm

"I like every kind of music except rap and country," says a stick figure dude.

"So basically your musical taste sucks," reasons a stick figure chick with her stick hands cocked on her stick hips, her stick eyes bulging with authoritative wit and, well, disbelief that anyone — even a lowly stick dude — could be so uncouth.

"Yeah, basically," says the stick dude, his stick shoulders sunken, a grimace of self-diagnosed lameness on his sullen lil stick face.

It was this moment during the summer of 2005, reading this Web comic, in which I fell head over flip-flops in love with Natalie Dee, the web illustrator, the blogger, the brilliant cultural observer and humorist — the stick chick herself. Dee — which, by the way, is not her real name — started the Natalie Dee site in September of 2002, updated it sporadically, then made oodles of bored office drones and listless students pretty damn happy when she began to update the site daily in December of 2003. Time warp to three years later, and Dee's posted way more than 1,000 drawings, has added a thriving (and adorable, and affordable) merch section to her site, and has launched a second Web comic — Married to the Sea —with husband Drew, with whom most Internet-savvy types are probably already familiar through his own Web comic, Toothpaste for Dinner.

Dee's web-world is one populated by googley-eyed pugs, talking hot dogs, tons of poop jokes, a frog that thinks all Coldplay fans "died of boredom years ago," and — most of all — by Dee, who is way more self-reflective, blunt, weird, entertaining, and wonderful than a 27-year-old, Amy Sedaris-lovin', Ghostface Killah-obsessed college drop-out from Columbus, Ohio has any right to be. Actually, on second thought, Dee's just as awesome as she should be, even if she is kind of tight-lipped about details of her personal life. "I'm just a regular person," Dee says. "I grew up in a small town in Ohio, went to high school, went to college, dropped out, then worked regular, entry-level jobs until I started doing this full-time. I have always been myself. The only reason I don't put my full name out there is because I don't want people to call me. I have talked to other people who do the same kind of stuff as me, and those who had made their real names public got called by people, or visited, and that's not my bag... I'm not trying to create some myth around myself, I'm just trying to make some comics."

I tend to classify Dee's ruminations on sheep vaginas and talking turtle shells as random (well, wouldn't you?), but Dee maintains that there's nothing random about her illustrations, that she's totally aware of where these ideas come from, and how she's conveying them.

"Making comics is just like taking a crap," says Dee. "It's necessary for my well-being, and it is sometimes enjoyable... When I make comics, I don't analyze them afterwards, like, 'Is this too dirty?' or, 'Is this too cutesy?' or, 'Is this too weird?' or, 'Is this too messed up?'. I don't care what people think. I make comics to express myself. You don't write in your diary with the thought of someone who might break into your bedroom and read it. That defeats the purpose."

This is the appeal of Dee's work. Each minimalist doodle and accompanying text either a) highlights and elucidates a thought, feeling, or crass irritation shared by, like, 97-percent of the population, or b) is so bizarre and ridiculous and idiosyncratic that you can't help but to somehow adopt that picture and those words as your own experience.

Dee recognizes that her lack of personal restrictions around oft-embarrassing taboo topics (armpit hair, puking, and, uh, being a "hobosexual"?) could be what keeps readers coming back for more, but also thinks that fans are addicted to the Attention Deficit Disorder-ness of it all.

"I jump from topic to topic every single day, so the net is cast wide as far as the kinds of ideas I share with people," says Dee. "I will draw something about eating cake for breakfast, and get e-mails from people like, "How did you know I had cake for breakfast today?" Well, I didn't, but I get millions of hits a month, so anything I draw will probably apply to someone who read the comic. That spark of recognizing themselves in the comics is what I think makes people identify with my work so much, and become long-term readers."

Laugh daily, and buy some fly gear, at nataliedee.com, marriedtothesea.com, and — heck, while we're at it — toothpastefordinner.com.