Calvin & Hobbes dominated the Sunday comics in thousands of newspapers for over 10 years, having a profound effect on millions of readers across the globe. When the strip’s creator, Bill Watterson, retired the strip on New Year’s Eve in 1995, devoted readers everywhere felt the void left by the departure of Calvin, Hobbes, and Watterson’s other cast of characters, and many fans would never find a satisfactory replacement.
It has now been more than a decade since the end of the Calvin & Hobbes era. Bill Watterson has kept an extremely low profile during this time, living a very private life outside of Cleveland, Ohio. Despite his quiet lifestyle, Mr. Watterson is remembered and appreciated daily by fans who still enjoy his amazing collection of work.
Mr. Watterson has inspired and influenced millions of people through Calvin & Hobbes. Newspaper readership and book sales can be tracked and recorded, but the human impact he has had and the value of his art are perhaps impossible to measure.
This film is not a quest to find Bill Watterson, or to invade his privacy. It is an exploration to discover why his 'simple' comic strip made such an impact on so many readers in the 80s and 90s, and why it still means so much to us today.
I can't wait for this. I have fond memories of reading the Calvin & Hobbes strips as a kid. 20 years later I still find myself flipping through the anthologies and appreciating just how well written and imaginative the strips are.
His two stated reasons were the pressure of coming up with seven strips a week and a distaste for the tiny space newspapers gave him to work with:
" I believe I've done what I can do within the constraints of daily deadlines and small panels. I am eager to work at a more thoughtful pace, with fewer artistic compromises."
Then, almost immediately after this happened, the web took off and solved both his problems. For years I waited for his announcement of his webcomic. But it never happened.
The page you link to gives the reason from an interview he did in 2010:
"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."
You could read that as being about Calvin and Hobbes specifically but it feels to me that it's about cartooning in general.
It's understandable that someone who had achieved what he has achieved in the medium felt that there wasn't too much more to do and that it was time to try something else.
If that's the case, it's interesting that he was unable to see / admit it in 1995, and instead heaped all the blame on newspaper editors cramping his style.
The blaming the papers wasn't a 1995 thing. By that point he'd already taken one sabbatical because of the pressure he felt and had managed to get the papers to accept some small changes to the format of the Sunday strips because he wasn't happy with the work he was able to do. Regardless of his intentions for the future and what he thought he may or may not be able to do, his dissatisfaction with the medium and the newspapers was very real.
If you read what he's said about the situation and his unhappiness with it my guess would be that when he quit he really just wanted out and he he probably didn't know what he was going to do next. Realising that he felt he'd done all he wanted to do with the format probably came later when he had some distance.
Yes, and he very likely was aware of the issue back in 1995. In an article about him, someone mentioned: "It used to be that 'you did it forever, no matter what the quality was,' says Moore, who doubles as a Times news editor. 'The new camp [of cartoonists] says that when the quality of the strip starts diminishing, you get out of the business.'" (http://articles.latimes.com/1995-11-16/news/ls-3760_1_bill-w...)
His "resignation letter" was naturally too short to contain his complex thoughts on the subject.
There is commentary is one of the later books which covers off some of what he was feeling at the time. Reading that I don't think there's much doubt that his dissatisfaction was with the constraints of working as a commercial cartoonist rather than anything that would change between Calvin and Hobbes and another cartoon.
He never said it wouldn't, either, and our experience with creative people who work in the public eye suggests that this is anomalous. I get that he's not, like, accountable to us, but our expectations were not unreasonable and neither is our disappointment. Of course if you have a gift, you can decide to selfishly guard it instead of sharing it, even after sharing it for so long. Doing so kind of makes you an asshole. Well within your rights, of course.
Your version of me is detestable, but it isn't what I'm really saying. I think you should be able to appreciate the nuances of my point. When a person in a particular line of work says they're going to work on different projects, you interpret that differently than if they say they're going to retire. If someone is not retiring but simply choosing not to exercise their talents, they're being selfish. I am not saying he's an asshole for not doing C&H anymore. I'm saying he's a hypocrite. That's fine, we all are to some extent, but there's no need to promote him to sainthood or work over everything he's ever said with laser precision to exonerate it. Sure, people run out. But sometimes people just get selfish and lazy, and just as creating something great once doesn't mean you necessarily have other great things in you, it also doesn't exempt you from having to live in the world, work like the rest of us, and deal with negative opinions.
It seems there is a reasonable but incorrect assumption here - that the next thing he did would also be public. As I say, that assumption is perfectly reasonable, but it was still an assumption rather than something he said and it turned out to be incorrect.
If you think he knew for sure that he wouldn't do anything similar again yet said this then you'd be justified in saying that he'd mislead people (which wouldn't make him a hypocrite, rather an outright liar) but there's no evidence that that's the case. The guy worshipped cartoons and had worked for years to become then remain a cartoonist. As stressed as he'd been by it all I suspect he felt there was a chance he'd return to it at some point (and may still do, though that seems unlikely now).
But at the time he quit, like many people ending a long term, all consuming project which has left them financially secure, all he really knew was that he was going to take some time out then do something different without really knowing what.
Sure it would have been great had he felt that he had another great, public venture in him but he didn't and I don't think there's anything at all to criticise in what he did or how he did it. That's not saying he's a saint (I think he unwillingness to speak about almost anything since is slightly off, though it is his right), just that I don't think he's done anything to deserve criticism in the way you're suggesting.
Interestingly Jim Davis stopped doing Garfield ages ago - he just had a team of people doing it on his behalf so he could keep making the money...
Obviously it diminished any legacy Garfield has had but he's still got to go and do what he wanted (Orson's Farm).
But it's not clear that Waterson's something else would ever be commercial or public - just that he was going to go and do something that wasn't Calvin and Hobbes.
Only he will know what his original intention was (or even if he had any sort of clear idea at the time) but he has no children and is presumably financially secure for life from Calvin and Hobbes so at the very least he'll have known that not "working" again was an option.
As of January 2010 it had been featured in 2,400 newspapers worldwide and there are 18 books with combined sales of nearly 45 million... Reruns of the strip still appear in over 50 countries.
He's married but has no children and seems, from what you can read, to live a relatively modest life.
I'm assuming that adds up to being secure and I suspect if it were to go one way or another from secure it would go towards being very well off indeed.
It is generally believed that Watterson has been painting in his retirement. The fact that he hasn't tried to make a splash by selling his art should come as a surprise to exactly nobody.
Knowing so little about him (I think this documentary claims to have the first audio recording of him in 10 years), it's hard to know how he's viewed the Web age...it's possible that he, being someone who grew up and was inspired by Peanuts in newspapers, still believes that is the prime medium (that, and books), and may not feel compelled to produce for the web, especially if his success so far has allowed him to live the life that he wants, in privacy.
That said, it's so rare to see an artist quit out of artistic principle...and also, refuse to sellout. He's fiercely protective of his copyright...not because he's selling his own C&H merchandise, but because he doesn't want his characters to be watered down in the same way that Peanuts has been. I would love to have C&H t-shirts, dolls...but I have to say, about a decade later, the scarcity of C&H has made it even more sacred and beloved to me.
I'm still confused how the litany of "Calvin peeing on X" stickers have been allowed to happen. It's clearly Calvin, and not some derivative. It clearly isn't parody or satire (of the work itself, or otherwise protected). And there are clearly financial beneficiaries of the stickers.
As a long-time lover of C&H, it simply confounds me.
Well, there's no central source or single manufacturer to shut down. Pretty much anybody with a printer can make them. The most likely explanation is Watterson knows trying to challenge them would be futile and a waste of his time.
Watterson writes about this in one of the bigger compilation books (one like The Days Are Just Packed): infringers are too numerous for him to track down, and he was loathe to hire on assistants just to hire IP. I couldn't find that source, but I did find him talking at length about why there's almost no officially licensed merchandise:
I think if he had gone down the official licensing road, someone else would have taken care of infringers for him. As it is, he wanted to do what he loved and not worry about that aspect of the business.
I think you have mistakenly assumed that sharing his work with the public was not Watterson's absolute least favorite aspect of being a creator. I have no doubt that he is still pursuing creative activities, but I'd be surprised if he decided to share any of it with the world anytime soon. (I figure it will come out either after his death, or once enough decades have passed for him to feel up to facing the public.)
As a die hard fan, I was immensely disappointed in this documentary. If you already know the story and have read the 10-year book, theres absolutely nothing more to learn from this.
For casual fans, it would probably be great though.
I love Calvin & Hobbes as well, but I'd list Pogo as pretty serious competition, and there are a number of other great, historically important strips (e.g., Krazy Kat).
Funny that you mention these two, as Bill Watterson cited both Pogo and Krazy Kat as major influences on Calvin and Hobbes in the Tenth Anniversary Book.
BTW, if you are a fan and for some reason have not read the Tenth Anniversary Book, I strongly recommend it. Watterson's commentary throughout is awesome and really highlights the brilliance of the strip.
Calvin & Hobbes and Pogo are two of my favorites also. But for sheer volume of jokes and puns packed into each strip, it's hard to top Get Fuzzy. Its basic premise is similar to Garfield (man living with cat and dog, both of whom can talk), but it's written by a cartoonist who hasn't been coming up with the same jokes for 30 years straight.
C&H has a special place in my childhood, but I agree that in terms of quality, Mafalda is just as good, or better.
That said, it's a strongly political strip, which no doubt alienates some people, and of course, it requires a good translation for anyone who can't read Spanish.
Thank God for a respite from the endless stories of the empire that have been on HN lately. I have very fond memories of Calvin & Hobbes, as well as Bloom County, and was sad to see those strips shut down in the 90s. I guess it's good for both artists that they quit before things got too tired, though.
I saw this at the [Wisconsin Film Festival this year](http://wff.to/10SMEZh). It was very well done, with a fair amount of detail of Watterson's early work, inspirations and philosophy. His peers in the cartooning world, fans and critics speak of what he created with irreverence that seems mostly reserved for the great painters of the past century. Simply: Watterson created art that has inspired a generation.
As mentioned in some other comments, die-hard fans will probably not find any new information here, but I would say see it anyway. Even people who haven't even heard of Calvin & Hobbes, and casual readers should find it insightful and entertaining.
44 comments
[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 111 ms ] threadA documentary film about the impact of the best comic strip in the history of the universe: Calvin & Hobbes
Here's the Vimeo channel for the documentary: http://vimeo.com/dearmrwatterson
Here's the synopsis:
----------
Calvin & Hobbes dominated the Sunday comics in thousands of newspapers for over 10 years, having a profound effect on millions of readers across the globe. When the strip’s creator, Bill Watterson, retired the strip on New Year’s Eve in 1995, devoted readers everywhere felt the void left by the departure of Calvin, Hobbes, and Watterson’s other cast of characters, and many fans would never find a satisfactory replacement.
It has now been more than a decade since the end of the Calvin & Hobbes era. Bill Watterson has kept an extremely low profile during this time, living a very private life outside of Cleveland, Ohio. Despite his quiet lifestyle, Mr. Watterson is remembered and appreciated daily by fans who still enjoy his amazing collection of work.
Mr. Watterson has inspired and influenced millions of people through Calvin & Hobbes. Newspaper readership and book sales can be tracked and recorded, but the human impact he has had and the value of his art are perhaps impossible to measure.
This film is not a quest to find Bill Watterson, or to invade his privacy. It is an exploration to discover why his 'simple' comic strip made such an impact on so many readers in the 80s and 90s, and why it still means so much to us today.
http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Watterson#End_of_Calvin_an...
His two stated reasons were the pressure of coming up with seven strips a week and a distaste for the tiny space newspapers gave him to work with:
" I believe I've done what I can do within the constraints of daily deadlines and small panels. I am eager to work at a more thoughtful pace, with fewer artistic compromises."
Then, almost immediately after this happened, the web took off and solved both his problems. For years I waited for his announcement of his webcomic. But it never happened.
I guess he wasn't so eager after all.
"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."
You could read that as being about Calvin and Hobbes specifically but it feels to me that it's about cartooning in general.
It's understandable that someone who had achieved what he has achieved in the medium felt that there wasn't too much more to do and that it was time to try something else.
If you read what he's said about the situation and his unhappiness with it my guess would be that when he quit he really just wanted out and he he probably didn't know what he was going to do next. Realising that he felt he'd done all he wanted to do with the format probably came later when he had some distance.
His "resignation letter" was naturally too short to contain his complex thoughts on the subject.
At the same time, I think the OP's point is that the "trying something else" never seems to have materialized.
He made people happy for a decade (and longer with reruns and memories) and you've decided he's an asshole for not doing it for longer.
I think that's harsh - ultimately you're saying you want him to do work he isn't happy with and causes him stress for your entertainment.
If you think he knew for sure that he wouldn't do anything similar again yet said this then you'd be justified in saying that he'd mislead people (which wouldn't make him a hypocrite, rather an outright liar) but there's no evidence that that's the case. The guy worshipped cartoons and had worked for years to become then remain a cartoonist. As stressed as he'd been by it all I suspect he felt there was a chance he'd return to it at some point (and may still do, though that seems unlikely now).
But at the time he quit, like many people ending a long term, all consuming project which has left them financially secure, all he really knew was that he was going to take some time out then do something different without really knowing what.
Sure it would have been great had he felt that he had another great, public venture in him but he didn't and I don't think there's anything at all to criticise in what he did or how he did it. That's not saying he's a saint (I think he unwillingness to speak about almost anything since is slightly off, though it is his right), just that I don't think he's done anything to deserve criticism in the way you're suggesting.
Obviously it diminished any legacy Garfield has had but he's still got to go and do what he wanted (Orson's Farm).
But it's not clear that Waterson's something else would ever be commercial or public - just that he was going to go and do something that wasn't Calvin and Hobbes.
Only he will know what his original intention was (or even if he had any sort of clear idea at the time) but he has no children and is presumably financially secure for life from Calvin and Hobbes so at the very least he'll have known that not "working" again was an option.
He's married but has no children and seems, from what you can read, to live a relatively modest life.
I'm assuming that adds up to being secure and I suspect if it were to go one way or another from secure it would go towards being very well off indeed.
That said, it's so rare to see an artist quit out of artistic principle...and also, refuse to sellout. He's fiercely protective of his copyright...not because he's selling his own C&H merchandise, but because he doesn't want his characters to be watered down in the same way that Peanuts has been. I would love to have C&H t-shirts, dolls...but I have to say, about a decade later, the scarcity of C&H has made it even more sacred and beloved to me.
As a long-time lover of C&H, it simply confounds me.
http://iheartpicturebooks.blogspot.ca/2010/04/bill-watterson...
I think if he had gone down the official licensing road, someone else would have taken care of infringers for him. As it is, he wanted to do what he loved and not worry about that aspect of the business.
However, you can hear about 6 seconds of his interview in the trailer.
For casual fans, it would probably be great though.
It's pretty unfair given that most people haven't really exhausted the genre. I think (Mafalda)[http://hoodedutilitarian.com/2010/07/dwyck-the-dreams-of-chi...] is at least just as good.
BTW, if you are a fan and for some reason have not read the Tenth Anniversary Book, I strongly recommend it. Watterson's commentary throughout is awesome and really highlights the brilliance of the strip.
http://www.amazon.com/Calvin-Hobbes-Tenth-Anniversary-Book/d...
That said, it's a strongly political strip, which no doubt alienates some people, and of course, it requires a good translation for anyone who can't read Spanish.
Indie Game: The Movie
Story of Mojang (Minecraft)
Now this......
Spaceman Spiff forever!
As mentioned in some other comments, die-hard fans will probably not find any new information here, but I would say see it anyway. Even people who haven't even heard of Calvin & Hobbes, and casual readers should find it insightful and entertaining.