I think there is an idiom using “tightrope walking” but it’s not really current, and I’m not confident on what it is used to communicate. Something along the lines of “a narrow distinction” or “a distinction that is hard to maintain”.
To walk a tightrope is to carefully balance two opposing paths:
Well, he will have to balance living as a hermit, cut off from society AND being a POP sensation with his buddy Wallace. Seems like a very tight rope indeed. Some would say, the rope in question has 0 width and can’t be walked at all, but a boy can have dreams, can’t he?
The humor in this strip is heavily dependent on familiarity with Spud’s personality. He’s a bit of an introverted, easily frightened nerd, but nevertheless has frequent dreams of achieving a variety of utterly unrealistic goals.
Kilby is spot on in terms of the world of the strip, but it never occurred to me that people wouldn’t recognize the phrase “walking a tightrope” as meaning balancing between two opposing things (in this case, life goals). Will Henry is quite a bit younger than me, so it can’t be an age thing. Can it?
Well, the Unabomber was sort of a pop sensation, so he has precedent…
A hoody and aviator glasses were as iconic as a single lacy glove or a sharply pointy conical bustier…
I immediately thought of Leon Russell
One of the reasons I love this strip so much is that Wallace always takes Spud just as he is.
Lola – Fully agree. His song “Tight Rppe”:
“I’m up on the tight rope. One side’s hate and one is hope…”
“Tight Rope”. Sigh.
I’m up on the high wire. One side’s ice and one is fire.
You have to be a very certain age.
We won’t talk about giraffes.
“On one side of the mountain road, there was a mountain; on the other side, there was nuthin’.“
Comics I Don't Understand 
I think there is an idiom using “tightrope walking” but it’s not really current, and I’m not confident on what it is used to communicate. Something along the lines of “a narrow distinction” or “a distinction that is hard to maintain”.
To walk a tightrope is to carefully balance two opposing paths:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/walk-tread-a-tightrope
Yes, that’s what makes it a CIDU, for me.
Well, he will have to balance living as a hermit, cut off from society AND being a POP sensation with his buddy Wallace. Seems like a very tight rope indeed. Some would say, the rope in question has 0 width and can’t be walked at all, but a boy can have dreams, can’t he?
The humor in this strip is heavily dependent on familiarity with Spud’s personality. He’s a bit of an introverted, easily frightened nerd, but nevertheless has frequent dreams of achieving a variety of utterly unrealistic goals.
Kilby is spot on in terms of the world of the strip, but it never occurred to me that people wouldn’t recognize the phrase “walking a tightrope” as meaning balancing between two opposing things (in this case, life goals). Will Henry is quite a bit younger than me, so it can’t be an age thing. Can it?
Well, the Unabomber was sort of a pop sensation, so he has precedent…
A hoody and aviator glasses were as iconic as a single lacy glove or a sharply pointy conical bustier…
I immediately thought of Leon Russell
One of the reasons I love this strip so much is that Wallace always takes Spud just as he is.
Lola – Fully agree. His song “Tight Rppe”:
“I’m up on the tight rope. One side’s hate and one is hope…”
“Tight Rope”. Sigh.
I’m up on the high wire. One side’s ice and one is fire.
You have to be a very certain age.
We won’t talk about giraffes.
“On one side of the mountain road, there was a mountain; on the other side, there was nuthin’.“