Richard Thompson Suspends Comic Strip

Richard Thompson, who draws the Cul-de-Sac daily comic strip, has suspended the strip for four weeks to undergo treatment for Parkinson’s disease.

Thompson came out of fanzine fandom. Many of his cartoons appeared in the 1980s and 1990s in such fanzines as Stephen Brown and Dan Steffan’s Science Fiction Eye, Ted White and Dan Steffan’s Blat! and the Disclave program book.

Thompson was first diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2009. Since then friends and fans have been encouraging and supporting Thompson through Team Cul De Sac.

Thompson lightened the latest announcement with a touch of humor:

Well, I’m taking some time off. Some more time off, three or four weeks. I’m about to start a program of physical therapy sessions designed for people with Parkinson’s. I’ve only been in for an evaluation, but the therapy largely consists of big, exaggerated movements and sweeping silly walks that will so embarrass your body that it’ll start behaving itself, I hope.

Thompson received the National Cartoonists Society’s Reuben Award, a cartoonist of the year prize, in 2011. The daily “Cul de Sac,” which he launched as a weekly feature in The Washington Post Magazine, is carried by more than 140 papers.

[Thanks to Martin Morse Wooster for the story.]