Six Guest Cartoonists Take Up Temporary Residence on Cul de Sac

Image courtesy and ©2011 Richard Thompson/Universal Uclick

2010 National Cartoonist Society “Cartoonist of the Year” Richard Thompson is taking a hiatus from his Universal Uclick syndicated comic strip Cul de Sac, and inviting six guest cartoonists to take over the reins of the popular daily during his absence. Richard is taking time off to receive treatment for Parkinson’s Disease.

The six guest cartoonists will be Ken Fisher (Tom the Dancing Bug), Michael Jantze (The Norm), Corey Pandolph (Elderberries), Stephan Pastis (Pearls Before Swine), Lincoln Pierce (Big Nate) and Mo Willems (award winning children’s book author/illustrator). Their guest stints began yesterday (Monday, Feb 20th) with Michael Jantze behind the pen, and will continue with dailies through the week of March 19 and Sundays from March 18 through April 15.

You can read about the guest artist project on the Washington Post’s Comic Riffs blog, complete with interviews of several of the guest artists discussing their involvement and how they approached their take on the unique look at humor of Cul de Sac.

This is going to be very interesting. All the cartoonists involved are great talents, and it is going to be fun to see how they incorporate Richard’s style in with their own. I would be surprised to see any of them do a straight imitation of Richard’s very individual artistic look. The two dailies by Michael so far have that Cul de Sac flavor but are still obviously a different artist’s take.

BTW, several of the guest cartoonists also contributed to the upcoming Cul de Sac book benefiting the Michael J. Fox Foundation which supports Parkinson’s Disease research.