Blind Alley is an ongoing webcomic launched in 2021 by cartoonist and illustrator Adam De Souza. Told as a series of four-panel greyscale comics (with occasional colored Splash Panels), the webcomic follows an Ensemble Cast of Free-Range Children living in the as-yet mysterious town of Blind Alley. The entries vary from traditional Gag-Per-Day comics making humorous observations about children, friendship, and comics themselves, to Unexpectedly Dark stories about loss and grief. Throughout the webcomic's run, more and more fantastical elements begin to appear, including mysterious beings, telepathic powers, and hints to a vast conspiracy.
The complete archive of Blind Alley can be read here
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Tropes found in "Blind Alley" include:
- Beat Panel: Frequently employed for comedic effect, typically as the third panel.
- The Bully: Ten pushes around and harasses the other kids, especially Oliver.
- Butt-Monkey: Oliver tends to get the short end of the stick in many situations.
- Comic-Book Time: The comic’s child characters, including the infant Elroy, have remained the same age across its five-year run.
- Corrupted Character Copy: Ten has significant similarities with the protagonists of the first two Mother games, particularly Ninten from EarthBound Beginnings, being a plucky young boy with a hat who wields a baseball bat...except that, unlike them, he is an obnoxious, bullying brat.
- Freudian Excuse: The reason Ten bullies the other kids turns out to be because his mother is dying from a terminal disease, leading him to take his trauma out on everyone else.
- Guest Comic: An entire volume's worth of them was serialized in 2026, showing various artists giving their own take on the characters' day-to-day lives.
- Psychic Link: Best friends Pod and Sweetpea are shown to share one of these, able to sense when the other is in distress across long distances.
- Stress Vomit: Red throws up after getting harassed by Ten, which ironically disgusts him enough to back off.
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Red's Stress Vomit is shown on-panel.