Calvin & Hobbes C or D

It's nicely done, but the way it seems to be saying "this is a choice you can make!" is kinda condescending, as most people don't have the financial security and/or a spouse willing to support them that's required to make a choice like this.

otm. it's kind of just a twee version of a Calvin-peeing-on bumper sticker.
--some dude

Haha yessss

It's nicely done, but the way it seems to be saying "this is a choice you can make!" is kinda condescending, as most people don't have the financial security and/or a spouse willing to support them that's required to make a choice like this.

― Tuomas, Thursday, August 29, 2013 6:50 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

OTM x1000.

I bet no one's gonna draw a Watterson-esque cartoon where he calls his fellow cartoonists out for not actually drawing their own shit.

very few comic strip artists have worked without some form of assistance, be it writing, pencilling, lettering, inking - schulz and watterson are rare exceptions - and would like to see watterson, or anyone, produce one of the classic daily adventure strips w/out hired help

watterson was a fan of walt kelly, who always used assistants -- i think his ire toward jim davis et al was mainly due to the quality of their ('their') work.

Yeah, and he took sabbaticals as well, I'm sure he understood the need for assistants for people who worked straight through for decades. It still boggles my mind how much extraneous work Kelly did while drawing Pogo.

daily comic strips seem like an insane work grind, i don't begrudge anyone for having help in keeping up that work rate

he used to get a lot of flak from other cartoonists for the sabbaticals, and for the late-career demands to cede him more and more of the comics page and remove the panel restrictions everybody else worked under, which is kind of understandable buuuuuuuut late calvin+hobbes is all-time american art and the rest of the comics page is a pointless wasteland apparently intended for people older than the currently possible human lifespan so

I interpreted Watterson's anti-assistant angle as, "This is what you want to do, so why aren't you doing it?"

But yeah, he did some serious spleen-venting towards Jim Davis. He also took a few shots at Mort Walker ("Maybe some people can meet their standards of quality and still be on the golf course by 9:00am"), but Walker countered that he still penciled and inked every strip.

Watterson was like the Miles Davis of cartooning; he'd talk shit about everyone, but his work was so unfuckwithable that even his targets loved him.

is he the last great newspaper strip artist? can't think of anyone who came after with his stature, and the medium's obviously dead now

Dik Browne

It must be kind of disappointing for the guy - he made this towering case for the comics page being a place where great things could happen, 100% justified the big format strips, everything...and no one's come along to actually make it worth it. There've been some good strips to debut in the last two decades, but certainly nothing that's a feast for the eyes or anything. It honestly makes me cringe to see today's lazily-doodled Prince Valiants being printed at Watterson sizes, although presumably they're being drawn so badly (and scripted so thinly) on the assumption that most papers are going to run them as postage stamps.

*remembers* oh right newspapers

here's watterson on richard thompson's 'cul de sac' (best newspaper strip since C&H imo):

http://ignatz.brinkster.net/cforeword4.html

yeah cul de sac was excellent.

think chris ware semi-qualifies as a post-watterson newspaper strip artist who has enlarged the idea of what a comic strip can be, or can do.

I guess. having only read his stuff in compiled form I've never really thought of him that way

acme is in the never-ending ilx comic strip poll, so chris ware must be a newspaper strip artist

QED

i'm glad u mentioned the never-ending ilx comic strip poll. if you haven't voted in it yet, please do so!

golf, amirite? ilx's comic strip voting thread is now open

think chris ware semi-qualifies as a post-watterson newspaper strip artist who has enlarged the idea of what a comic strip can be, or can do.

add Blegvad and Gurewitch to Thompson too

oh yeah. please keep bumping the comix poll thread, i need to remember to get a ballot together.

It must be kind of disappointing for the guy - he made this towering case for the comics page being a place where great things could happen, 100% justified the big format strips, everything...and no one's come along to actually make it worth it.

i think C&H was probably the only strip that could've gotten away with demanding so much space -- everyone loved it, it appealed to grandmas and kids and teens and basically anyone who ever read a newspaper, everyone would've thrown a fit if any editor had cancelled it. it's the one post-schulz strip that approached peanuts-like universality. that watterson managed to achieve this without having ANY merchandising and doing almost no interviews and basically doing everything you're not supposed to do as a cartoonist just ups his achievement in my eyes, but it'll prob never happen again.

Whoa, new interview with Watterson!

http://mentalfloss.com/article/53216/mental-floss-exclusive-our-interview-bill-watterson

Wow, thanks for posting that. Kind of amazing that he's done two interviews in the last four years. For him, that's like having a nightly talk show.

Short, sweet, and a few good tidbits. Nice link.

According to your collection introductions, you took up painting after the strip ended. Why don’t you exhibit the work?

My first problem is that I don’t paint ambitiously. It’s all catch and release—just tiny fish that aren’t really worth the trouble to clean and cook. But yes, my second problem is that Calvin and Hobbes created a level of attention and expectation that I don't know how to process.

love that he just privately paints now cuz that was calvin's dad's idea of peace

Just finished watching the 'Dear Mr. Watterson' film. As expected, it's basically people (other cartoonists, people from his syndicate, locals from Chagrin Falls and various fans) talking about the strip and its impact and Watterson's place in history and so on and so forth, but I liked it.

reviews are p negative, and it's not bcz the critics don't like the strip.

Can't wait til this guy dies so we can get an awesome cgi feature out of this. Frankie muniz as the voice of calvin.

it's almost like not everything needs a fucking kickstarter documentary

I could be mistaken, but in one of the interviews it sounded like Universal Press Syndicate has retained the liberty at any time to begin merchandising Calvin & Hobbes and has deferred to Watterson's wishes on the matter.

That's true, and Watterson himself talked about it in his most recent interview, as well as in The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book. As a struggling cartoonist, he signed away his rights to his creations to the syndicate (not an uncommon practice by new cartoonists, apparently). He said something along the lines of, "At the time, I was more worried about the consequences if it didn't become popular than if it did."

And yeah, Universal could have easily told him to get lost, hired someone else to draw it, and filled the world's toy stores with crappy C&H trinkets. By deferring to Watterson on this, they either thought he might change his mind later, or figured they had something incredibly special on their hands and better not fuck with it.

Oh wait, I misunderstood...so Universal can sell C&H merch now, in 2013? I think Watterson won that battle/signed a new contract in the early 90s.

I love that he's some Reddit martyr for NOT SELLING OUT THE COMIC WHAT GIVES US THE FEELS, and the internet respond by using his ideas to make garbage like this: http://zenpencils.com/comic/128-bill-watterson-a-cartoonists-advice/

i stole that opinion from another message board but you get the point

eh, one artist pays fond tribute to another - hard to work up even mild irritation

Lol @ the idea that a megacorp like Universal respects an artist's wishes more than $$$

I thought that was bonkers too, but one of the UPS people being interviewed made it sound like that's exactly what they were doing. I think if they were to roll out merch against Watterson's wishes, though, the backlash would be massive from both inside and outside the community.

Before Hobbes, by Len Wein, J Michael Stracynzki and Jae Lee.

gahhhhh

Watterson did the poster art for new documentary on newspaper comics.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2014/02/26/arts/26artsbeat-watterson/26artsbeat-watterson-blog480.jpg

Dear Mr. Watterson is up on Netflix streaming now.

http://dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2014/06/05/is-bill-watterson-ghost-drawing-pearls-before-swine-this-week/

I agree with one of the commenters...Watterson sneaks back and Pearls Before Swine is the strip he sneaks back to?! Ugh.

Of course, it might not be him at all.

why would he do this

pearls before pearls before swine tbh

this is like Salinger coming back to write an episode of Family Guy

lol