This is tangential, but for those of you looking to fill the Calvin and Hobbes hole in your life, I highly recommend the illustrated weblog of French cartoonist Boulet. It's really amazing. (And it's pretty clear that C&H was a huge inspiration for him.)
There's also Hobbes and Bacon, a fan-drawn series that picks up with adult Calvin (now married to Susie) giving his old Hobbes toy to his daughter. Very well done and nostalgia-inducing.
And to add to this tangent: my friend Dana Simpson does a strip for Universal called "Phoebe and her Unicorn", about a girl whose best friend is... well, the title kind of gives it away. When the strip launched, they sent her the gigantic collection of All The C&H; she's never quite decided if it was in celebration, or a threat that she had to live up to that standard.
There's a daily newspaper comic called Frazz that has constant C&H references. The conceit is that Frazz is Calvin after he grew up and decided to work as a school janitor to be around kids. https://www.uclick.com/client/sea/fz/
I admire very few people as much as I do Bill Watterson.
He had a major part in my childhood as I tore through each and every one of his books, read the 10th anniversary and all its commentary at least a dozen times and still find myself opening my entire collection on occasion when I stumble across them in my "box of stuff I hope to one day pass my kid." I remember checking "Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat" from our school library in 5th grade only to have my dog chew the cover. I was secretly so happy because it meant I got to keep the book (while my parents were stuck paying for it).
The guy has stuck so clearly to his principles when he was surely presented multiple opportunities to make far more money licensing his product. I cringe every time I see a poor unlicensed Calvin relieving himself on various truck logos, I can't imagine Watterson is a fan of that.
I have zero qualms with artists making money off something they create (duh), but it is refreshing when a Watterson comes along and makes a clear choice to keep his creation untouched by anyone other than himself.
TLDR: Bill Watterson did an interview and you can buy it. It was great. It was great. It was great.
What an empty article. I kept reading hoping to get some information. I guess they were worried the would get in trouble for quoting any of the interview?
No kidding; so far as I can tell, the first ~15 paragraphs are all essentially paraphrases of each other. I like C&H as much as the next guy, but is this much... breathlessness really called for?
I can't disagree with you, even though I submitted the OP. My reasoning is that linking to Amazon would be seen as a more direct attempt to sell a product...also, the product page can be opaque for most users (if not completely inaccessible, depending on country)...not everyone will notice the March 10, 2015 publish date, for instance.
To give the OP some credit, I googled around for other articles about the book (I would've chosen any other article based on the OP's unnecessary sensationalist headline), and this was the only one of any substance...so perhaps Watterson had some kind of embargo? In any case, if it weren't for the WaPo, I wouldn't have even known this book was out. I went to the Stanford bookstore early this morning and no one there knew about the book either.
Bill Watterson is a Salingeresque figure to many, the reclusive creator of a work that many people call a defining part of their personal development. Just as there were many newspaper articles about failed attempts to contact Salinger, there's plenty of audience for an article about a new piece of output from Watterson.
I have severely mixed emotions about Bill Watterson, mostly in a philosophical frame.
On the positive side, I am a great fan of his Calvin and Hobbes work over many years, and would quickly state that it had a significant influence on my developing worldview. As I grew both as a person and artist, I took great interest in his pushback against commercialism, and later, his efforts with the Sunday comics. There was a fighting spirit, a man of principle, who leveraged his success in ways that may seem trivial or needlessly difficult to regular business people, but are fundamental in the creative sphere where exploiting an artist's work for maximum profit is typically the norm. For these aspects of his career, I'm eternally grateful.
Here's the part where people look at me like I'm just being a jerk: After reading as much of his interviews, panel contributions and commencement speeches as possible, I discovered a profoundly selfish and hypocritical man. Time and again, he spoke highly of the importance of art, of doing art as much as possible, and how important his particular art, that of comics, was to the overall conversation about life. What bothers me the most is that once he obtained financial stability and security that, roughly speaking, only 1% of artists in any genre can hope to obtain, he straight up quit. He had, for lack of a better term, the world as his audience to continue putting out material on his own terms, and he did nothing. Nothing.
To me, I find that immensely conflicting. I love Calvin and Hobbes and always will. I embrace many of the lessons that Bill Watterson's career gave me about success, commercialism, and integrity. All that noted, I will never hesitate to claim that a real artist doesn't just up and quit and walk away because they can afford to. A real artist can never afford to quit because it's what they do, and art without an audience is simply selfish folly.
Will I try to get my hands on this interview? Of course. Will it be painful to read, simply because of my personal perspective? Absolutely...
Honest question: Why do you feel entitled to more of his work?
I believe it's more useful to be thankful for something that was given than to be angry that you didn't get more.
Watterson:
> This isn't as hard to understand as people try to make it. By the end of ten years, I'd said pretty much everything I had come there to say. It's always better to leave the party early. If I had rolled along with the strip's popularity and repeated myself for another five, ten, or twenty years, the people now "grieving" for Calvin and Hobbes would be wishing me dead and cursing newspapers for running tedious, ancient strips like mine instead of acquiring fresher, livelier talent. And I'd be agreeing with them. I think some of the reason Calvin and Hobbes still finds an audience today is because I chose not to run the wheels off it. I've never regretted stopping when I did.
He quit on a high note, before the strip became tired overly repetitive. This is totally consistent with his actions and the viewpoints he have expressed, where he consistently have stressed putting quality above quantity.
You may have liked him to act differently, and continue producing to satisfy your craving for quantity. But that he have different values than you does not make him selfish or a hypocrite.
> Time and again, he spoke highly of the importance of art, of doing art as much as possible
You should check out Dali's bio, the man got up, ate his breakfast and then sat down to paint religiously from 9 to 5, everyday, no exceptions, no distractions.
I thought he had said that he quit because he didn't like being a celebrity, and people were constantly invading his privacy and considered his personal life fair game because he was famous. I even heard a rumor that he painted a watercolor landscape every day and then burned it so no fans would be creeping around trying to get their hands on one.
Another perspective on art is that it is the process of making the art. The pieces that come out the end for people to look at are then merely the waste produced.
That's a thought-provoking perspective. It made me wonder whether BW has more to say, and what his plans are for how to say it.
A charitable hypothesis is that he thought that his existing work said what he considered to be most important in the clearest way, and that anything further he said would detract from it.
Another charitable possibility is that he knows what he has yet to say, but he thought "we" weren't ready to hear it yet for some reason (e.g. the marriage of the comic medium and its commercial dimensions made saying it too complicated or risky. Maybe other reasons.)
I think it's easy to assume that BW acted selfishly by doing nothing. Well, not easy in every way--your perspective isn't in the majority, and the pushback from other commenters demonstrates that, I think. What I mean by "easy" is just that I can see his behavior as being in-line with human frailties (easier to talk the talk than walk the walk). I know it would be hard for me to choose to labor, creating my art, when I'd already achieved success.
I'm hoping that you could forgive his failures as being just the ordinary human kind, or maybe even consider the possibility that he might not have failed at all, but was instead in a situation where it didn't make sense to produce more.
But I like your argument a lot, because it reminds me that we have a responsibility to more than our own welfare and success. If we can do something to help the world, we should, and those (like BW) with more opportunity have more responsibility.
> art without an audience is simply selfish folly.
That's like, your opinion, man.
I've heard Watterson does indeed paint, and has showed his paintings to immediate friends and family. There were rumours he was actually exhibiting, on a very small scale and under pseudonym, in his own little community.
"An audience" does not mean "a mass audience". An audience of one (his mother, for example) is still an audience.
Is there a point here? He should have done "something" (unspecified). He quit because he could afford too, because the idea he quit because he wanted to or was ready to or it was time is unthinkable, or something. Mixed emotions because he didn't do what you would do, or something. Because artists don't do that, or something.
I expect many of the comments will be adulation for Bill Watterson. I know he always gets unending praise, and while he did do many great things, I found his latter C&H strips to be him putting his rants in the mouth of a 6-year-old boy, where they no longer belonged.
Really, look at some of the later strips. Calvin is frequently frowning or complaining about something. The earlier strips were more care-free and he acts more like a 6-year-old albeit with a ridiculously rich vocabulary.
Good for him to quit when he was obviously no longer enjoying the process. Got to give him that.
Some aspects of the strip became repetitive, but visually they became stronger, especially in the sunday strips after he got free hands to break up the frames. So I suspect he realized he had reached the limits of the newspaper strip medium. Going further would require changing medium to something like comic book format. He did produce some childrens book formats.
[+] [-] archagon|11 years ago|reply
http://english.bouletcorp.com/2012/12/05/the-warrior-never-r...
http://english.bouletcorp.com/2013/10/08/our-toyota-was-fant...
http://english.bouletcorp.com/2012/02/01/darkness/
http://english.bouletcorp.com/2013/02/04/paola-4/
[+] [-] Rudism|11 years ago|reply
Part 1: http://www.pantsareoverrated.com/archive/2011/05/10/hobbes-a...
Part 2: http://www.pantsareoverrated.com/archive/2011/05/12/hobbes-a...
Part 3: http://www.pantsareoverrated.com/archive/2011/10/11/hobbes-a...
Part 4: http://www.pantsareoverrated.com/archive/2011/10/13/hobbes-a...
[+] [-] egypturnash|11 years ago|reply
http://www.gocomics.com/phoebe-and-her-unicorn
[+] [-] sp332|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danielhunt|11 years ago|reply
Upvote and a hat-tip for you, for linking to that site.
[+] [-] saganus|11 years ago|reply
Thanks!
Edit: BTW, thanks for ruining my productivity for the whole day :)
[+] [-] zellyn|11 years ago|reply
Thank you!
[+] [-] sogen|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sharkweek|11 years ago|reply
He had a major part in my childhood as I tore through each and every one of his books, read the 10th anniversary and all its commentary at least a dozen times and still find myself opening my entire collection on occasion when I stumble across them in my "box of stuff I hope to one day pass my kid." I remember checking "Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat" from our school library in 5th grade only to have my dog chew the cover. I was secretly so happy because it meant I got to keep the book (while my parents were stuck paying for it).
The guy has stuck so clearly to his principles when he was surely presented multiple opportunities to make far more money licensing his product. I cringe every time I see a poor unlicensed Calvin relieving himself on various truck logos, I can't imagine Watterson is a fan of that.
I have zero qualms with artists making money off something they create (duh), but it is refreshing when a Watterson comes along and makes a clear choice to keep his creation untouched by anyone other than himself.
All that to say, can't wait to read this.
[+] [-] senthil_rajasek|11 years ago|reply
It's also perfectly alright for artists to give away their creations for free.
[+] [-] samspot|11 years ago|reply
What an empty article. I kept reading hoping to get some information. I guess they were worried the would get in trouble for quoting any of the interview?
[+] [-] jeorgun|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danso|11 years ago|reply
To give the OP some credit, I googled around for other articles about the book (I would've chosen any other article based on the OP's unnecessary sensationalist headline), and this was the only one of any substance...so perhaps Watterson had some kind of embargo? In any case, if it weren't for the WaPo, I wouldn't have even known this book was out. I went to the Stanford bookstore early this morning and no one there knew about the book either.
[+] [-] qq66|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hurin|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] masukomi|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 6stringmerc|11 years ago|reply
On the positive side, I am a great fan of his Calvin and Hobbes work over many years, and would quickly state that it had a significant influence on my developing worldview. As I grew both as a person and artist, I took great interest in his pushback against commercialism, and later, his efforts with the Sunday comics. There was a fighting spirit, a man of principle, who leveraged his success in ways that may seem trivial or needlessly difficult to regular business people, but are fundamental in the creative sphere where exploiting an artist's work for maximum profit is typically the norm. For these aspects of his career, I'm eternally grateful.
Here's the part where people look at me like I'm just being a jerk: After reading as much of his interviews, panel contributions and commencement speeches as possible, I discovered a profoundly selfish and hypocritical man. Time and again, he spoke highly of the importance of art, of doing art as much as possible, and how important his particular art, that of comics, was to the overall conversation about life. What bothers me the most is that once he obtained financial stability and security that, roughly speaking, only 1% of artists in any genre can hope to obtain, he straight up quit. He had, for lack of a better term, the world as his audience to continue putting out material on his own terms, and he did nothing. Nothing.
To me, I find that immensely conflicting. I love Calvin and Hobbes and always will. I embrace many of the lessons that Bill Watterson's career gave me about success, commercialism, and integrity. All that noted, I will never hesitate to claim that a real artist doesn't just up and quit and walk away because they can afford to. A real artist can never afford to quit because it's what they do, and art without an audience is simply selfish folly.
Will I try to get my hands on this interview? Of course. Will it be painful to read, simply because of my personal perspective? Absolutely...
[+] [-] than|11 years ago|reply
I believe it's more useful to be thankful for something that was given than to be angry that you didn't get more.
Watterson:
> This isn't as hard to understand as people try to make it. By the end of ten years, I'd said pretty much everything I had come there to say. It's always better to leave the party early. If I had rolled along with the strip's popularity and repeated myself for another five, ten, or twenty years, the people now "grieving" for Calvin and Hobbes would be wishing me dead and cursing newspapers for running tedious, ancient strips like mine instead of acquiring fresher, livelier talent. And I'd be agreeing with them. I think some of the reason Calvin and Hobbes still finds an audience today is because I chose not to run the wheels off it. I've never regretted stopping when I did.
Source: http://www.cleveland.com/living/index.ssf/2010/02/bill_watte...
[+] [-] olavk|11 years ago|reply
You may have liked him to act differently, and continue producing to satisfy your craving for quantity. But that he have different values than you does not make him selfish or a hypocrite.
[+] [-] sogen|11 years ago|reply
You should check out Dali's bio, the man got up, ate his breakfast and then sat down to paint religiously from 9 to 5, everyday, no exceptions, no distractions.
[+] [-] sp332|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lotsofmangos|11 years ago|reply
Another perspective on art is that it is the process of making the art. The pieces that come out the end for people to look at are then merely the waste produced.
[+] [-] anakanemison|11 years ago|reply
A charitable hypothesis is that he thought that his existing work said what he considered to be most important in the clearest way, and that anything further he said would detract from it.
Another charitable possibility is that he knows what he has yet to say, but he thought "we" weren't ready to hear it yet for some reason (e.g. the marriage of the comic medium and its commercial dimensions made saying it too complicated or risky. Maybe other reasons.)
I think it's easy to assume that BW acted selfishly by doing nothing. Well, not easy in every way--your perspective isn't in the majority, and the pushback from other commenters demonstrates that, I think. What I mean by "easy" is just that I can see his behavior as being in-line with human frailties (easier to talk the talk than walk the walk). I know it would be hard for me to choose to labor, creating my art, when I'd already achieved success.
I'm hoping that you could forgive his failures as being just the ordinary human kind, or maybe even consider the possibility that he might not have failed at all, but was instead in a situation where it didn't make sense to produce more.
But I like your argument a lot, because it reminds me that we have a responsibility to more than our own welfare and success. If we can do something to help the world, we should, and those (like BW) with more opportunity have more responsibility.
[+] [-] chez17|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toyg|11 years ago|reply
That's like, your opinion, man.
I've heard Watterson does indeed paint, and has showed his paintings to immediate friends and family. There were rumours he was actually exhibiting, on a very small scale and under pseudonym, in his own little community.
"An audience" does not mean "a mass audience". An audience of one (his mother, for example) is still an audience.
[+] [-] enjo|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] kjs3|11 years ago|reply
Who's selfish and hypocritical again?
[+] [-] jordigh|11 years ago|reply
Really, look at some of the later strips. Calvin is frequently frowning or complaining about something. The earlier strips were more care-free and he acts more like a 6-year-old albeit with a ridiculously rich vocabulary.
Good for him to quit when he was obviously no longer enjoying the process. Got to give him that.
[+] [-] guessbest|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mattzito|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] olavk|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] markrages|11 years ago|reply
It was brave of Kelly to do it at the time, but those strips are not as timeless as the earlier ones.
[+] [-] endlessvoid94|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] than|11 years ago|reply