<div>Richard Thompson's Cul de Sac follows the antics of four-year-old Alice Otterloop as she navigates her way through her suburban town and life's ups and downs at Blisshaven Preschool. More than half of our nation's population resides in the burbs, and suburbanites everywhere will easily recognize Cul de Sac's tree-lined streets, big-box retail stores, and kiddy crunchy cereals, along with the revealing backseat conversations between Alice and her brother.Thompson's paintbrush captures humorously poignant and reflectively thoughtful watercolor scenes that offer commentary on life and how we choose to live it. Appearing in more than 100 newspapers, Cul de Sac has garnered Thompson critical praise from both the National Cartoonists Society and the Society of Illustrators. </div>

Shapes and Colors

<div>&quot;I hope you enjoy Cul de Sac as much as I do. I think you're in for a real treat.&quot; --Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin and Hobbes, 2008&quot;One of the five best features in any newspaper, period.&quot; --The Comics Reporter&quot;One of the few strips around where nearly every individual panel is stand-alone delight.&quot; --The Onion &quot;...it really seems like the inheritor of 'Calvin and Hobbes.'&quot; --Art Spiegelman&quot;I can't say enough in his favor, so much is my admiration for his work.&quot; --Pat OliphantMore than half of our nation's population resides in the 'burbs. Knowingly, Richard Thompson's Cul de Sac follows the antics of four-year-old Alice Otterloop as she navigates her way through life at Blisshaven Preschool, &quot;the scene of [her] daily toil.&quot; Suburbanites across the nation will easily recognize the quirks and conundrums associated with house-lined streets, sidewalk canvases, and magnetified refrigerator art.Instructed by the proper Miss Bliss, Alice regularly has issues with taking a nap, speaking out of turn, and remembering what a triangle looks like. Helping her through life's ups and downs are her eight-year-old brother Petey, Dad (a.k.a. Peter), and Mom (a.k.a. Madeline), as well as Mr. Danders, the preschool's pompously pedantic guinea pig.This is the strip's first book collection incorporating more than a year's worth of strips dating back to the cartoon's 2007 debut. Thompson has received critical praise for doing a masterful job of commenting on social issues while entertaining in a freshly amusing and unexpected way.</div>

Cul de Sac: This Exit

<div>Richard Thompson reminds us that being a 40-year-old isn't hard, but being a four-year-old is. His warm, welcoming reminders are wonderfully lighthearted and funny as he brings home Alice's life in a fun, new Cul de Sac collection.Alice and her Blisshaven Preschool classmates charm fans of all ages. Their adventures ring alarmingly true to parents of little ones, too. From doing projects in a whirlwind of crayons and markers to their nonstop chatter to trying to comprehend a completely incomprehensible world, Thompson's characters make Children at Play a must-read. The little boxes crammed together, the shopping malls, and the insane traffic systems set the scene for the storylines and adventures that only suburban life can provide.Thompson's witty dialogue meets comically unique drawings to make Cul de Sac a place worthy of visiting on a daily basis.&quot;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.&quot; --Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin and Hobbes </div>

Children at Play

<div>Cul de Sac is a lighthearted comic strip about the suburban life of a precocious preschooler named Alice Otterloop. Richard Thompson's wonderful watercolor and fun, imaginative drawings have garnered the attention of highly acclaimed illustrators all over the world, including Bill Watterson and Mo Willems, who have each written a foreword for his first two collections.</div>

The Mighty Alice

<div>The Cul de Sac Golden Treasury is a hilarious and beautiful omnibus of cartoonist Richard Thompson's Cul de Sac comic strips, bringing together strips from the first collection, Cul de Sac, and the 2009 collection, Children at Play.A lighthearted look at the suburban life of precocious preschooler Alice Otterloop, Cul de Sac is noted not only for its humor and intelligence, but also for Thompson's fun, imaginative watercolor artwork. Thompson's work has attracted the praise of highly acclaimed illustrators all over the world, including Bill Watterson (Calvin and Hobbes) and Mo Willems (Sheep in the Big City, Knuffle Bunny).The Cul de Sac Golden Treasury will be a valued addition to the libraries of Cul de Sac fans and a fantastic introduction for readers new to this warm, wonderful comic strip. </div>

Cul de Sac: Golden Treasury

<div>The summer of 1919 is over, and on the high prairie, a small army of men, women, and machines moves across the land, bringing in the wheat harvest. Custom threshers, steam engineers, bindlestiffs, cooks, camp followers, and hobos join the tide. Big Wheat is king as people gleefully embrace the gospels of progress and greed.But with Big Wheat comes a serial killer who calls himself the Windmill Man. He believes he has a holy calling to water the newly plucked earth with blood. The mobile harvest provides an endless supply of ready victims. He has been killing for years now and intends to kill for many more.A young man named Charlie Krueger also follows the harvest. Jilted by his childhood sweetheart and estranged from his drunkard father, he hopes to find a new life as a steam engineer. But in a newly harvested field in the nearly black Dakota night, he has come upon a strange man digging a grave. And in that moment, Charlie becomes the only person who has seen the face of a killer....</div>

Big Wheat

<div>Herman Jackson has chosen St. Paul as his place of permanent exile from Detroit, where his former life as a bookie got too hot to hold. Now he leads a respectable, low-profile life as a bail bondsman, selling second chances to losers and looking over his shoulder. When a young woman named Amy Cox leaves Jackson a priceless antique violin as security for her brother's bail bond, it's really the beginning of an elaborate con game. But the game is barely underway when she is brutally murdered in front of Jacksons office. And for reasons that make no sense, the police are calling him the prime suspect. That is, unless he gives them the violin as evidence. With his criminal past, Jackson can't afford to be a prime suspect for jaywalking. But neither is he prepared to give in to extortion. Soon he is on the road and on the run, trying to solve Amy Cox's murder, pursued by one real and one crooked cop, a band of urban Gypsies who claim to have first rights to the violin, and an unknown killer who also wants Jackson dead. Nobody is who he claims to be, nothing is what it seems, and the violin, which is reputed to carry a 400-year-old curse, begins to take on a life of its own. While Jackson tries to sort it all out, the killing continues, and suddenly his old life back in Detroit doesn't look so dangerous at all.</div>

Fiddle Game

<div>Herman Jackson never thought his past would catch up with him, least of all via a murdered Vietnam veteran named Charlie Victor. Jackson used to run a bookie operation in Detroit, but his bail bond business in St. Paul is much safer. And if Charlie Victor wasn't his best client, he was at least a steady one, paying his bonding fee out of a secret stash he called his frag box.Then Charlie is beaten to death on a public street in broad daylight. Strangely, he leaves behind a will naming Jackson as his sole heir. Jackson wants justice for Charlie, who had become something of a friend. But with plenty of money problems of his own, he also wants the box of cash.Unfortunately, Charlie's killers want it, too, and the race is on. Jackson will traverse the dark alleys of St. Paul's Railroad Island, the snowbound Minnesota Iron Range, and finally an abandoned tunnel under St. Paul. But every step reveals another layer of protection and another set of lies Jackson has told, including the ones he told himself....</div>

Richard A. Thompson
Follow this author

Books By Richard A. Thompson (8 Books)

Shapes and Colors

Cul de Sac: This Exit

Children at Play

The Mighty Alice

Cul de Sac: Golden Treasury

Big Wheat

Fiddle Game

Frag Box

Get weekly updates and deals from Early Bird Books

More from

Corporate

© 2024 OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA

Richard A. ThompsonFollow this author