Cul de Sac comic strips and books auctioned to save bookstore

Several thousand dollars were raised today through auctions of Richard Thompson's Cul de Sac original art, books, and other works,to assist One More Page Bookstore in paying an unexpected large tax bill.

As the bookstore faced a Draconian tax increase, books Richard had signed before his death, along with 2 strips newly donated by Amy Thompson, sold to fans of the cartoonist, including one strip to local cartoonist Daniel Boris. A quick calculation is that Richard provided about $2600 in sales or 12.5% of the auction proceeds (but check the math before quoting me).

One More Page was dear to Richard, hosting him for their first booksigning (before the store had even opened), for his first Cul de Sac collection. After he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, the store held fundraisers for Team Cul de Sac to raise money for the Michael J. Fox Foundation. Richard passed away just barely over three years ago.

The store's auction site described the original art as such:

American illustrator and cartoonist Richard Thompson was best known for his syndicated comic strip Cul de Sac. Richard received the Reuben Award for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year in 2010. We are huge fans of Richard's work and were thrilled when he agreed to do an event at OMP when we first opened. Over the years, he was a invaluable supporter, promoting OMP and signing countless books to be shipped to fans worldwide.

Richard's wife, Amy, generously donated this original artwork of a panel of Cul de Sac ("Trick or Treat" panel #111031), his strip which focused on a four-year-old girl, Alice Otterloop, and her daily life at preschool and at home. Cul de Sac was published in more than 70 newspapers by the fall of 2007 and was distributed nationally as both a daily and Sunday strip by Universal Press Syndicate.

Bill Watterson, created of Calvin and Hobbes, praised Thompson's work: 

"I thought the best newspaper comic strips were long gone, and I've never been happier to be wrong. Richard Thompson's Cul de Sac has it all—intelligence, gentle humor, a delightful way with words, and, most surprising of all, wonderful, wonderful drawings."

"Cul de Sac's whimsical take on the world and playful sense of language somehow gets funnier the more times you read it. Four-year-old Alice and her Blisshaven Preschool classmates will ring true to any parent. Doing projects in a cloud of glue and glitter, the little kids manage to reinterpret an otherwise incomprehensible world via their meandering, nonstop chatter. But I think my favorite character is Alice's older brother, Petey. A haunted, controlling milquetoast, he's surely one of the most neurotic kids to appear in comics. These children and their struggles are presented affectionately, and one of the things I like best about Cul de Sac is its natural warmth. Cul de Sac avoids both mawkishness and cynicism and instead finds genuine charm in its loopy appreciation of small events. Very few strips can hit this subtle note."

The Art of Richard Thompson is available in French

As of last fall, The Art of Richard Thompson is available in French (in Europe at least) from Urban Comics of Paris. They have done an excellent job on the book production. Cul de Sac is also reprinted by them in three volumes. The American version is sold out from Andrews McMeel. The Incomplete Art of Why Things Are (The Richard Thompson Library Volume 1) is still currently available.

The note says that translated versions of the comics have been added at the back of this edition.

 

Art of RT for sale in Singapore

CT Lim found The Art of Richard Thompson in his local bookshop Kinokuniya, in Singapore, and kindly sent me this photo.

Thompson and Bill Watterson talk comics some more

The Art of Richard Thompson book excerpt: Thompson and Bill Watterson talk comics some more

http://richardspooralmanac.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-art-of-richard-thompson-book.html

The Art of Richard Thompson book excerpt: Thompson and Bill Watterson talk comics

Not a hoax. Not a joke. Not an April Fool's day trick. Here's an excerpt of the conversation of Richard Thompson and Bill Watterson from The Art of Richard Thompson, which you can buy right now from Amazon or Barnes & Noble, or order and wait for a copy signed by Richard from One More Page.

BILL WATTERSON: When I was a kid, I loved Peanuts, so I wanted to be the next Charles Schulz. I didn’t understand what that meant of course, but it seemed like a plan. You came to your comic strip from a different path,
however.

RICHARD THOMPSON: Yeah. Off in my own little world of being a pretend cartoonist. Without a plan.

BW: So how did you envision cartooning? What was your experience of it as a kid?

RT: Well, Schulz pretty much defined “cartoonist.” But I remember in fifth grade, a friend’s older sister had some Pogo books and we spent the day poring over them. That was the first time I understood some of the jokes. It was pretty intimidating and dense for a kid.

RT: Yeah, mostly strips. Comic books were hard to find. And a strip is a one-person deal. Not like animation, where you’ve got to work with other people.

BW: As a kid, animation just seemed out of the question to me. I wouldn’t even know how to go about doing it.

RT: It was interesting. But even when I was old enough to maybe try it, I always hated the idea of working with others.

BW: Plus, you needed film equipment and all that.

RT: Yeah. Really, though, I did cartoons without any clear thought of having a future in it.

BW: Any other strips or cartoons that had any impact as a kid?

RT: Some strange ones. There was a panel called Mr. Tweedy about a hapless little guy. I don't remember who drew it. And there was Freddy by a guy who signed as Rupe. I think he was local.

BW: I don't know either one.

RT: I think it was probably in one paper. Also, Wizard of Id... BC... And Mad Magazine of course. I discovered that when I was probably ten.

BW: I remember there was some shock value in bringing Mad home.

RT: Right. (laughs) I remember the first time I picked it up in the grocery store and said I wanted to buy this. My parents looked at it and went ickkk. But my dad finally read it and started giggling. He had a good sense of humor, thankfully.

BW: My next-door neighbor bought it regularly, and he'd bring it over and I'd pore over the drawings. Eventually I worked up the nerve to ask my mom if I could get it. There were a number of years when I really thought Mad was the cat's pajamas, although now I think it was pretty formulaic. But even as a kid, it seemed out of the mainstream of cartooning. It was off in its own world.

RT: It seemed to open up this whole subculture.

BW: Could you imagine yourself doing something in that direction?

RT: Kinda vaguely.

BW: I could never see a way in. I couldn't imagine myself drawing movie and TV satires. I guess Don Martin did the closest thing to a regular cartoon, but in that grotesque style. Or Dave Berg's whatever....

RT: The Lighter Side Of (laughs). I'd often read it first. It was always so square!

BW: Right! So what did you respond to in Mad? What aspect?

RT: Oh, the art. The Aragones drawings in the margins and stuff like that. There was no one thing. Spy vs Spy, which was kind of exotic. And of course the parodies, where you discover caricature.

BW: I marveled at Mort Drucker, but I didn't see any road between here and there. At that age, my drawing skills were pretty much limited to drawing things in side-view outlines.

RT: I would try, but... I do remember seeing David Levine drawings of Nixon in like, sixth grade, in my classroom. My teacher was an anti-Nixonite. These beautiful, elegant drawings of Nixon--I remember being fascinated by it. He was using ink like paint, almost.

BW: What, the hatching?

RT: Yeah. So elegant.

BW: I never really responded to Levine. The likenesses were strong, but sort of like stone sculpture, or something- -not warm. I dunno. I remember Oliphant's caricatures really impressed me--so wild and cartoony, compared to Drucker. But getting a likeness is really hard. What made you want to do that?

RT: Caricature was something that'd always interested me. Later, as a freelancer, I thought the more arrows in my quiver the better. When I showed the art director at the Post, Mike Keegan, some pages of caricature sketches, he was delighted. I was suddenly taken more seriously too. I remember the British show Spitting Image had just premiered, and it gave me the kick I needed.

BW: Hm, I'm trying to think what else was in the air back then...

RT: I remember we had a bunch of New Yorker cartoon books in the classroom. This is like fifth or sixth grade. The teacher would bring them from home or something.

BW: OK, you moved in more sophisticated circles than I did!

RT: I didn't quite understand them. There's a Roz Chast drawing about her as a child finding Charles Addams cartoons, and I remember finding those too, and how gruesome they were. And the painting in them was soft and..

BW: The grays?

RT: Yeah, like no one else.

BW: I was probably a bit older when I saw New Yorkers. You know, if it was a cartoon, I'd jump to read it, but I don't remember them making much impact. Well, actually, I still like George Booth a lot. He's one of the few New Yorker cartoonists whose drawings are funny.

RT: I remember being impressed with New Yorker cartoons, but I probably didn't understand much.

BW: How about comic books? Nothing?

RT: Some. They were hard to find. I'd find them occasionally, and then I'd probably whine 'til I got them. If they were Batmans.

BW: Really, they were hard to find? My town had three drugstores that used to carry them, and I'd get them sometimes, but superhero comics didn't do a lot for me.

RT: Archie and whatnot... I had a few of those but I was never really into them.

BW: One summer my neighbor gave me this huge box of Archie comic books, and I read them in the car on some family vacation. I have no idea where he got them, but there were a zillion of the things, so my brother and I sat in the back seat reading one after another until it nearly killed us. We read ten thousand Archie comic books and they were all exactly the same.

RT: And the drawings are so clean.

BW: Yeah, very slick. Even then I thought they were dumb and outdated. It's a bizarre memory. How about underground comix? Did they have any impact on you?

RT: Some. I came late to undergrounds. I had friends who collected them (Henry Allen has Zap #0) but my main exposure was all in histories and anthologies. I liked, revered Crumb, though he is overwhelming, and thought Wonder Warthog was freaking hilarious.

BW: I saw some in college and I liked Wonder Warthog too, but on the whole, the undergrounds didn't make much connection. I preferred sillier, more cartoony stuff, I suppose.

What non-cartoon things made an impression on you as a kid?

RT: My folks liked doing things and making me a part of it. I remember when the Mona Lisa came to town. I was about six. We stood in line for a long time. Red draperies and guards every few feet, and then  ventually, there it is. My mom liked it a lot. The whole way, she was telling me what an important painting it was and the story of it. She had a great appreciation for culture. She didn’t have any great understanding of it so much as just liked it, I guess.

BW: Wow, I guess you’re one of the few people who’s ever seen it without a foot of bulletproof glass in front of it.

RT: I think so. You couldn’t get right up to it--there were velvet ropes. But you could breathe the same air. (BW laughs)

BW: I don’t remember much exposure to fine art--just the popular culture of the day. I think of my childhood as the Batman TV show, the Beatles, and the moon landings. Although I do remember in middle school there were a few years when I read all the Doctor Dolittle books. I loved those--the idea of talking to animals. A PETA sensibility ahead of its time. It probably had some subliminal influence on my strip. What aspects of pop culture did you participate in?

RT: Well yes, the moon landings and take-offs. You knew it was important when the teacher pushed the TV into the classroom.

Jump over to Richard's Cul de Sac blog for more discussion on comic strips.

"The Art of Richard Thompson"

Politics and Prose Jan 14, 2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGCfTorlJ3k&feature=share

http://www.politics-prose.com/event/b...

Named the Outstanding Cartoonist of 2010 by the National Cartoonists Society, Richard Thompson is best known for his syndicated series, Cul de Sac. But his work encompasses much more, and in this colorful career retrospective, six of his peers present the different facets of Thompson's art. Join Galifianakis, Washington Post cartoonist and author of If You Loved Me, You'd Think This Was Cute, Weingarten, Pulitzer-winning journalist who writes The Washington Post's "Below the Beltway" column, and Apatoff, an illustration scholar whose recent work includes a biography of illustrator Robert Fawcett. They will be interviewed by Michael Cavna, writer, artist, and lapsed cartoonist now producing The Washington Post's "Comic Riffs." (Andrews McMeel)

Founded by Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade in 1984, Politics & Prose Bookstore is Washington, D.C.'s premier independent bookstore and cultural hub, a gathering place for people interested in reading and discussing books. Politics & Prose offers superior service, unusual book choices, and a haven for book lovers in the store and online. Visit them on the web at http://www.politics-prose.com/

The Art of Richard Thompson at Politics and Prose

Politics and Prose had a good turnout for a discussion of The Art of Richard Thompson book. They video'd the talk, but until they put it online you can go to https://archive.org/details/PP150109ArtOfRichardThompson for unofficial audio. Here's official Richard Thompson photographer Bruce Guthrie's take.

They have about 20 signed (but not by Richard who was too sick to appear) books for sale.

Michael Cavna, P&P owner, Nick Galifianakis

Moderator Michael Cavna

Co-writer David Apatoff (in blue) with his wife the author Nell Minnow

Gene Weingarten realizing he's going to have to talk

Britt Conley, who massaged and color-corrected all the scans

Gene Weingarten recounting his stalking of Bill Watterson

Nick G thanking everyone who worked on the book