[than]

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.

Source: http://www.cleveland.com/living/index.ssf/2010/02/bill_watte...

[6stringmerc]

Why do you insist this is about me? I'm simply discussing what he said about his own philosophy and then comparing that with his actions. They don't reconcile.

Considering how many great artists "die before their time" and combining that with his own words, I see that as difficult to reconcile. It's one thing to admit to doing something for a paycheck, and there's pride to be had in honest work. To me it's dishonest to claim art is the primary driver and then, well, give up on doing art. What part of that do you disagree with?

Edit:

I never said I expected more Calvin and Hobbes, and if you think you're putting something forward with that quote I don't already know, you're wrong.

He had a platform to produce all kinds of other creative, influential, or interesting art, and he chose not to do anything. Well, maybe he did and it's all up in his attic. What good does an attic full of art do for the world?

[wodenokoto]

Maybe he ran out of things to say. Some artist die before their time, others sadly won't shut up and end up ruining their own art.

Anyway, as far as I am to understand he couldn't see himself escaping the shadow of C&H, so he secluded himself and put his art in the attic, feeling that its release wouldn't better the world as long as people would just respond to it as "this isn't C&H"

[harvestmoon]

Case in point The Simpsons. What season are we on, the 25th?

[paulv]

Valid art is only art that is shared on your terms?

[than]

Exactly as much good as Bill Watterson wanted it to.

[soperj]

How do you know that he's actually stopped doing art? Maybe he's just not doing it publicly.

[Frondo]

He's not trying to pass a law requiring Bill Watterson to make more art.

He wants this guy, with a voice and an audience, to make use of that. Few people in life get both, and it is disappointing to watch someone who's gotten both just walk away from those two things.