January 29 will begin the fifth week of One Big Happy in rerun mode. Has Rick Detorie retired the comic strip?
A year ago Rick Detorie ended the One Big Happy Sunday page with the last Sunday of 2022. Now he seems to have ended the daily version of the comic strip with the December 30, 2023 issue, the last daily of 2023.
Since January 1, 2024 the dailies have joined the Sundays as reruns.
Rick began the strip on September 11, 1988 – a Sunday, with the daily strip beginning the next day.
Same day reading of the strip can be had on daily newspaper funny pages, the Creators Syndicate site, the Arcamax comics page, or on newspaper websites that carry the Creators’ digital platform.
One Big Happy as seen at GoComics has always been reruns, Rick not allowing first run strips there.
Here are the vitals if Rick has indeed stopped producing new material for Ruthie –
ONE BIG HAPPY
by Rick Detorie
Sundays: September 11, 1988 – December 25, 2022
dailies: September 12, 1988 – December 30, 2023
Creators Syndicate
[the strip, as reruns, continues to be distributed since December 31, 2023]
A cursory Internet search was not able to produce the author’s exact age, but one answer in an interview indicated that his mother had been born in the early 1930s (she would be in her mid-90s now), so Rick Detorie is probably pushing close to 70. If he’s decided to retire, I don’t think anyone should have anything against it.
The New York Daily News is still carrying One Big Happy daily and Sunday even though it is now 100% rerun mode.