Bill Watterson talks
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
http://english.bouletcorp.com/2012/12/05/the-warrior-never-r...
http://english.bouletcorp.com/2013/10/08/our-toyota-was-fant...
Upvote and a hat-tip for you, for linking to that site.
Thank you!
Thanks!
Edit: BTW, thanks for ruining my productivity for the whole day :)
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...
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.
It's also perfectly alright for artists to give away their creations for free.
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?
"For any true fan of cartooning, it is a must-read, a must-buy, a must-pick-up."
This is the manufacture of a social standard for fandom, placing the power of identity outside of the individual and replacing it with consumer choices. It's that old mentality Adbusters fought so hard against: "Buy this product to get this identity."
Back to my Atari 2600 now, stay off my lawn.
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.
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...
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...
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?
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"
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.
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.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/James-Micheners-Writers-Handbook-Explo...
Other authors, writers, etc., have again and again spoken of the need to focus, some of them go to a cabin (forgot her name), others go to a hotel room (again, forgot her name), others go to a small office a couple of blocks away from their home (forgot his name), just so they can focus.
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.
Are you honestly of the opinion Bill Watterson is/was only capable of that one strip?
My point is that he had a platform to do all sorts of other artistic endeavors...completely unrelated to Calvin and Hobbes.
He did nothing.
In any case it speaks to the strength of his work that you hope for more, but it is disingenuous to call him selfish or a hypocrite because of this.
When he retired, he'd also shaped a generation's ideas of what a comic strip about a kid should be. Hell, of what comics should be, period - wander around a comic book convention asking people what their big influences are, and a lot of people will mention his name. He'll probably be remembered for another hundred years by anyone who cares to skim the history of the Great Comic Strips of the Twentieth Century.
You do something like that, I think you're allowed to retire and do work solely for yourself.
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.
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.
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.
Who's selfish and hypocritical again?
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.
It was brave of Kelly to do it at the time, but those strips are not as timeless as the earlier ones.