Middle-School Cartoonist Draws on Animal Insight

Seventh-Grader's Cockapoo Provides Inspiration for Her Comic Strips

Prince William County seventh-grader Crystal Wormack owns a sliver of renown in the U.S. Copyright registry: Registration No. VAu 952-280. Title of work: "Angel the Puppy."

Neither deluded classroom doodler nor widely published wunderkind, Crystal, 12, occupies a lowly but eccentric place at the intersection of her chosen profession and her status as a middle-schooler. Her cartoon, based on her family's cockapoo, Angel, has not been published as a regular serial. But Crystal, the daughter of a pastor and a Mary Kay representative, strives in a manner uncommon for an age group whose goals tend to be oriented toward honor roll and good cafeteria tables.

She has been preparing for her more public emergence this fall. Crystal hopes to sell her comic strips -- she has dozens -- in books that she will self-publish and offer at Prince William churches, libraries, maybe her school and on her upcoming Web site, http://www.angel-thepuppy.com. (A portion of the book's proceeds will go toward the training of therapy dogs, the family said.)

She is so serious that she established a limited liability corporation: Wormack Productions and Creations. She wants to approach newspapers soon.

"I developed the idea when I was 8, and I used to read a lot of comic strips and thought, 'Why can't I do that?' " she recalled recently, preparing to bang out a new strip while watching "SpongeBob SquarePants" on the living room television. "I was at the library and saw Garfield and Peanuts. I kept reading it over and over again. Some of the physical violence -- when the cat kicks the dog off the table or when the cat scratches his owner -- I kind of like that stuff . . . yeah, physical violence."

Her mother, Tracy, doubling as Crystal's handler/spokeswoman, interjected: " Fictitious violence."

Crystal, smiling, continued: "Since I'm a nice person, I have to find a way to release my anger."

"Angel the Puppy," a three-to-six frame comic strip, chronicles the fights and mishaps between Angel and her nemesis Gwydon, a male cat. The two play pranks on each other and often display the humor, savvy and failures of humans -- in other words, the same model seen in most cartoons with animals. Sometimes other characters, such as their human owners, Tracy and Yosarian, and the couple's twin daughters, Heather and Tara, make appearances. Then there's Angel's best friend, Trixie, a Lhasapoo, and Shelbie, a turtle.

Plot lines vary from the mundane to the absurd, and Crystal draws upon cultural literacy, with the animals referring to sushi, yoga, popular films or even commonly mocked psychological issues.

In one strip, the first frame shows Gwydon chasing a fly with a fly swatter, yelling "Yaaaargh!!!!!" while Angel stands by, frowning. The second frame shows Gwydon still in pursuit, but Angel's expression has turned mischievous, as if she is about to commit some prank. Finally, the third frame comes, but instead of Angel disrupting Gwydon's chase, she ponders aloud, in the effete words of an analyst: "Gwydon is described in 3 letters: O, C, and D."

Asked about the root of that particular cartoon and her apparent knowledge of obsessive-compulsive disorder, Crystal said: "Sometimes I watch 'Monk' [a TV show about an extraordinarily fastidious detective]. I don't really like it, but I just watch it whenever I go to my mom's friend's house."

Sometimes strips hint at personal feelings. In one case, Angel is taken to a shopping mall, and she falls for a soda vendor. "Here's my number. Call me sometime, baby," she coos. The owner, Tracy, says: "Naughty doggy," and begins walking away, while Angel's paws are scratching the vendor's countertop. Angel shouts: "Do not fret my love! I will be back for you!"