I have known Dustin since we both had hair and when it wasn't grey. I could say so much about his talent and wit plus he is such a big supporter/fan/friend of Richards. I really want to say more but then he would be sooo hard to put up with! 
Richard Thompson draws funny.
By that I mean his drawings, with their loopy lines, scritchy scratchings, and omnifarious orbs, coalesce to form characters whose faces seem to have been channeled from ancient Inuit totems (or the lavatory wall of the Kerrville, Texas, Dairy Queen). They’re stand alone funny. You don’t even have to absorb the gag to be tickled silly.
But when you take these quirky characters, who are as familiar to us as members of our own family, (Come now, who doesn’t know a diffident Peter or an audacious Alice? Can someone hand me a mirror, please?), and place them in a whimsical world that’s really quite mundane, until soggy clumps of it are probed with precision by a masterful cartoonist who transforms them into tiny cluster bombs of insightful hilarity, then you get the magic that is “Cul de Sac.”
And it’s just so damn wonderful.
Rick Detorie is the cartoonist responsible for the comic strip “One Big Happy.” He is also author of the YA novel “The Accidental Genius of Weasel High.”
Big Nate is one of the biggest names in cartooning right now, thanks to best-selling books and an uncanny ability to delve deep into the psyche of an eleven-year-old. We thank him immensely for his contribution to the Team, and hope this piece goes to a loving home.
