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.
Dear Mr. Watterson
11–20 of 45 posts
Re: Dear Mr. Watterson
#12When Calvin & Hobbes shut down in 1995, Bill Watterson wrote a letter explaining why: 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 mor…
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 wou…
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.
Re: Dear Mr. Watterson
#13I love Calvin & Hobbes but I dislike how casually it's touted as the best comic strip of all time.
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.
Re: Dear Mr. Watterson
#14When Calvin & Hobbes shut down in 1995, Bill Watterson wrote a letter explaining why: 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 mor…
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 li…
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.
Re: Dear Mr. Watterson
#15I love Calvin & Hobbes but I dislike how casually it's touted as the best comic strip of all time. 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.
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).
Re: Dear Mr. Watterson
#16When Calvin & Hobbes shut down in 1995, Bill Watterson wrote a letter explaining why: 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 mor…
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 wou…
Anybody who liked Garfield as a kid has an object lesson in exactly what he was trying to avoid.
At the same time, I think the OP's point is that the "trying something else" never seems to have materialized.
Re: Dear Mr. Watterson
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 wou…
Anybody who liked Garfield as a kid has an object lesson in exactly what he was trying to avoid. At the same time, I think the OP's point is that the "trying something else" never seems to have materialized.
He never said his "something else" would be something that could/should be shared with the public.
Re: Dear Mr. Watterson
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Anybody who liked Garfield as a kid has an object lesson in exactly what he was trying to avoid. At the same time, I think the OP's point is that the "trying something else" never seems to have materialized.
He never said his "something else" would be something that could/should be shared with the public.
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.
Re: Dear Mr. Watterson
#19I am becoming impressed with the documentaries coming from KickStarter campaigns.
Indie Game: The Movie
Story of Mojang (Minecraft)
Now this......
Re: Dear Mr. Watterson
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 wou…
Anybody who liked Garfield as a kid has an object lesson in exactly what he was trying to avoid. At the same time, I think the OP's point is that the "trying something else" never seems to have materialized.
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.