Comics

On Bill Watterson

After a long, long time, Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin and Hobbes, has responded to an interview. Watterson, for those in the know, is a reclusive creator who prefers to spend his time away from the public adulation that came his way because of his strip. His ten years of newspaper cartooning ended with a self-imposed retirement, and along with his decision to end Calvin and Hobbes at that time, he also took the decision to not allow his strip and its characters to be used for merchandising of any sort, with the exception of collected book editions – the best-known of which was The Complete Calvin and Hobbes, the massive hardcover collection of all the C&H strips, published by Andrews McNeel in late 2005. I believe the last interview he gave was in association with that volume’s release, where he replied to questions from fans from all around the world.

This particular interview does not cover any new ground into understanding Watterson, his craft or his future plans. The questions that the interviewer asks are mostly to do with what the artist feels about his creation and its legacy after 15 years, his relationship with his fans, and his thoughts on his self-imposed exile from the comics world. Not surprisingly, almost all his responses are in tune with what he’s said earlier, with a wash of dry humor here and there. The only time we see a flash of hubris is in his concluding words about how he wants Calvin and his tiger to be remembered – “I vote for Calvin and Hobbes, eighth wonder of the world”. But knowing the way journalists invent soundbytes, or parting lines, I wouldn’t be surprised if these exact words were never uttered. Yep, we’ll never know for sure.

This link was posted in a forum I frequent, and some listers were quick to point out that  Watterson seemed to be a little holier-than-thou with his principles, and very disinterested in his fans. There were also comments made about the fact that he’s shown fans of his art two raised middle fingers by donating all his art to the Ohio State University – yes, that’s an original art forum, and people do get very testy about lost art opportunities.

Obviously, I do not agree. I do not find anything in the interview ( or the interviews of his that I’ve read so far) that says Watterson is repulsed or does not care for fans. He’s honest about the strip – he put a lot of effort into it and is thankful readers appreciate it, but he does not want to capitalize on its success. There’s a bit of self-deprecating humor to what he says ( the comment about the groupies) but distaste? Not really. Again, speaking from personal experience, most people around me are crazy about C&H. Sometimes to such an extent that they are willing to quote chapter and verse and punchline from random strips during conversations. Hell, forget the creator, *I* am a little uncomfortable with the philosophical/life lessons they seem to find in their umpteenth reread of C&H collections. ( And that, in all honesty, is one of the reasons I choose to downplay my personal love for the strip, just because I do not want to be counted as part of this brigade. So sue me!) I cannot blame Watterson for being realistic and moving on with his life – his work is done, and he does not want to be a rock-star living off anniversary reunion performances. Good for him!

I think that the lack of merchandising and pop-culture-bombardment is what has contributed to C&H’s enduring popularity. I don’t know about others, but seeing images of characters from Garfield , Dragon-Ball Z, Charlie Brown, Dilbert, (insert popular strip here) has this disconcerting effect of making them all seem overly familiar. Speaking from personal experience, with all the merchandised strips, there are multiple inlets to discovering the original – “oh yeah, I saw it on a t-shirt/tv show/calendar, so this is a comic? Never knew!” And by that time, the effect of discovering something completely fresh and new is offset by this superficial familiarity. In case of C&H, the only way to discover it, and to get into it, is to stumble onto the strip, and this elevates the effect the comic has to the first-time reader. Unlikely or not, it seems like Watterson was smart enough to think of, and maintain C&H as a comic and nothing else, and this has helped his creation in the long run.
Another thing that I appreciate about the man is that he’s been consistent with his principles all throughout. The act of donating his original art to Ohio State University is in line with the artist’s personal viewpoint. The strip will always exist, and his gesture ensures that the art used to create C&H is not a commercial commodity ( yet! I sincerely hope someday some part of it comes to the market, and hopefully by then my coffers would be brimming with green). Other artists have done it – Jeff Smith, for instance, and if I understand right, Steve Bissette plans to make a donation of his existing Swamp Thing art and preliminary art to a museum. Nobody will own it, and everybody will have a chance to look at it, provided they make a trip to Ohio. Fair enough.
That said, I sincerely hope Watterson someday figures out that he has another creation inside of him, something that can be completely unlike C&H, and yet a worthy successor. It does not even have to be a comic, actually – maybe a book, or some fine art, or even a musical album. The world needs more great art, and Watterson is an artist’s artist, a rare breed today, and by Cthulhu, it feels good to have someone like him still exist.
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7 thoughts on “On Bill Watterson

  1. Bheema V says:

    >I think that the lack of merchandising and pop-culture-bombardment is what has contributed to C&H’s enduring popularity. I don’t know about others, but seeing images of characters from Garfield , Dragon-Ball Z, Charlie Brown, Dilbert, (insert popular strip here) has this disconcerting effect of making them all seem overly familiar.

    I would have to agree. I probably see a lot more of C&H (primarily because people refuse to stop forwarding C&H strips, even after I threaten grievous bodily harm) than something like Dragon-Ball (Not DBZ, which is, of course, ubiquitous). Actually this is worse than the situation you outline, since I am not just being bombarded with the characters in the Merchandise, but am instead bombarded with the actual strip. Damn, I need people to stop forwarding stuff to me.

  2. The sheer joy and nonsense of Calvin’s wild imagination is possibly already dead from overexposure, thanks to self-reflecting nincompoops and wannabe shrinks.

  3. @Chandru If you avoid reading C&H wherever you see it – forwarded emails, daily comic of the day, and read other stuff, and come back to it after months and months, the shock and awe of Watterson’s genius still gets to you. And that’s all that counts, honestly.

    @Ashwan This is a family-friendly blog. So far, at least. And Lovecraft creations are cent-percent tip-top a-one family friendly.

    @Bheema Be unfriendly. Abuse people who forward comic strips. They’ll stop. Also, count++

  4. I kicked myself, quite hard I must say, that I missed Crumb’s exhibit in the end!! Despite its 3 month run. :)

    Being from LA and with an appreciation for movie marketing business – I don’t necessary think over familiarization is such a bad idea. People I move around with can recognize Garfield, but can not recognize C&H. :)

    I think C&H is (becoming) an oddity like P.G.Wodehouse. :P

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