What a brilliantly written piece. Maintaining one's integrity is unfortunately rare enough that it makes Watterson's story so remarkable. I completely respect and admire his dedication to doing something for its own sake, for holding himself to the highest standards imaginable, and from walking away from it all for his own reasons - even if selfishly I'd rather him keep writing so that there would be more to enjoy. Time to go pull some old volumes of Calvin & Hobbes off the shelf for the hundredth time, I suppose.
I have so much nostalgia for Watterson's work. I occasionally will buy another of the hard bound 3 volume set. I always wind up giving them away and then buying another.
"A few weeks later, the project is finished. Watterson probably takes a moment to stand in the middle of the room and look up, contemplating the months of work, the tins of paint he went through, the things he learned about technique, about the joy of a job done for its own sake, about himself. Then he opens a tin of whitewash, climbs up the bed-chairs-table one last time, and paints over his work. He leaves the ceiling white, empty, fresh."
Is it Zen where they do this with mandalas? The monks spend forever building intricate sand paintings and then wipe/blow them away in an instant. Love it.
> I show two versions of reality, and each makes complete sense to the participant who sees it. I think that’s how life works.
Not to spoil a beautiful joke by explaining it, but all of the strips are based on this. Two characters see things differently. Sometimes it’s because Calvin is in the grip of his (psychosis|childhood) and sometimes it’s a totally ex machina Watterson idea that they’re exploring, but there’s always two worlds colliding hilariously.
I have no idea if a truly competent director could catch lightning in a bottle. The movie Fight Club has been correctly compared to Calvin and Hobbes. There’s no way for stuffed toys to capture this at all. Good for Watterson for allowing his genius not to be trampled.
> The movie Fight Club has been correctly compared to Calvin and Hobbes.
Bit of a tangent, but I recently watched Fight Club with my son. He was surprised he liked it because he'd gotten the impression it was a dog whistle for manosphere spazzes. I was like "exactly, Matrix is actually good too...".
> It looked like the syndicate’s warnings to Watterson were well-founded: Calvin and Hobbes was threatened with widespread cancellation.
Oh, that sounds bad.
> It says something about the popularity of Calvin and Hobbes — not to mention Watterson’s pulling power as a cartoonist — that after all the outrage and arguments, only fifteen of the 1,800 papers running Watterson’s strip threatened to remove it from their pages. And only seven followed through.
What. This directly contradicts the first statement, does it not?
Man, I always wonder what would have happened if Bill Watterson had been around for the era of webcomics. Much more creative freedom, and no editor or syndicate to tell you how to layout your panels. Would he have loved it?
Or would he have hated it? He certainly wouldn't have wanted to build a website for it.
Have to say, I've always admired Watterson's determination to keep Calvin and Hobbes a comic strip and not compromise on its vision for money/fame. As the article itself points out, it would have been very easy for it to become the next Peanuts or Garfield, and most artists probably would have taken that route the minute it became available. Heck, given the obsession with side hustles and grifting and get rich quick schemes, I don't think I could see any present day comic creator (or creator in general) making that sort of decision.
But yeah, it's admirable. Especially given how the average comic strip runs for decades on end with less and less humour or charm until its eventual cancelation.
Another anecdote (where it came from I do not remember) stuck in my brain was that Watterson's editor called him one day to tell him that STEVEN SPIELBERG was on the phone to talk with him about a Calvin and Hobbes movie. Watterson refused to take the call.
Or how he was mailed a box of Calvin and Hobbes plushies to try to get sign-off on the quality of the toys.
He mailed back a picture of the box on fire.
IMO Calvin and Hobbes will always be special because of Watterson's integrity. It says everything it needed to say, and those comics will almost always be relevant.
The danger of "more" is that it dilutes the purpose and voice of the original. "Cowboy Bebop" fits in this same realm, I think. It had a single season. They did a movie. They said everything they needed to say and left it at that.
