Jump to content

Bill Watterson

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 3gpabko (talk | contribs) at 18:30, 17 April 2007 (→‎External links). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Bill Watterson
OccupationCartoonist
SpouseMelissa Watterson

William B. "Bill" Watterson II (born 1958) is the author of the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes and a few poems (which are mostly embedded in his works).

Watterson was born in Washington, D.C., where his father, James G. Watterson (1932—), worked as a patent examiner while going to law school, before becoming a patent attorney in 1960. The family moved to Chagrin Falls, Ohio, where his mother Kathryn became a city council member, when Bill was six years old. He has a younger brother, Tom, who is a high school teacher in Austin, Texas.[citation needed]

Early career

In 1980, Watterson graduated from Kenyon College in Gambier with a degree in political science. Immediately the Cincinnati Post offered him a job drawing political cartoons for a six-month trial period:

The agreement was that they could fire me or I could quit with no questions asked if things didn't work out during the first few months. Sure enough, things didn't work out, and they fired me, no questions asked.

My guess is that the editor wanted his own Jeff MacNelly (a Pulitzer winner at 24), and I didn't live up to his expectations. My Cincinnati days were pretty kafkaesque. I had lived there all of two weeks, and the editor insisted that most of my work be about local, as opposed to national, issues. Cincinnati has a weird, three-party, city manager-government, and by the time I figured it out, I was standing in the unemployment lines. I didn't hit the ground running. Cincinnati at that time was also beginning to realize it had major cartooning talent in Jim Borgman, at the city's other paper, and I didn't benefit from the comparison.

— Watterson explaining his short career with Cincinnati Post [1]

Bill Watterson designed grocery advertisements for four years prior to working on Calvin and Hobbes, the strip which made him famous. [2]

Rise to success

Calvin and Hobbes was first published on November 18, 1985. Bill Watterson wrote in his Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book that his influences include Charles Schulz, for his work in Peanuts; Walt Kelly for his comic, Pogo; and George Herriman for Krazy Kat. Watterson's style also reflects the influence of Little Nemo in Slumberland, a popular early 20th century comic strip by Winsor McCay.[3][4]

Watterson spent much of his career trying to change the climate of newspaper comics. He believed that the artistic value of comics was being undermined, and that the space they occupied in newspapers continually decreased, subject to arbitrary whims of short-sighted publishers. Furthermore, he opined that art should not be judged by the medium for which it is created (i.e., that there is no "high" art or "low" art, just art).[5]

Watterson opposed the structure publishers imposed on Sunday newspaper cartoons: the standard cartoon starts with a large, wide rectangle featuring the cartoon's logo, and the rest of the strip is presented in a series of rectangles of different widths. In his opinion this format limited the cartoonist's options of allowable presentation. Watterson managed to gain an exception to these constraints for Calvin and Hobbes, allowing him to draw his Sunday cartoons the way he wanted. In many of his strips, the panels overlap or contain their own panels; in some the action progresses diagonally across the strip.

Watterson also battled against pressure from publishers to merchandise his work, something that he felt would cheapen his comic.[6] He refused to merchandise his creations on the grounds that pasting Calvin and Hobbes images on commercially-sold coffee mugs, stickers and t-shirts would devalue the characters and their personalities. He also refused to allow the strip to appear as an animated series.

Watterson was awarded the National Cartoonists Society Humor Comic Strip Award in 1988, and awarded the society's Reuben Award in 1986[7] (he was the youngest person ever to receive the award). In 1988, Watterson received the Reuben award again, and he was nominated again in 1992. Following his 1992 nomination, the National Cartoonists Society declared that no artist could win the award more than once.

Watterson wrote a brief, tongue-in-cheek autobiography in the late 1980s.[8]

Retirement

Dear Reader:



I will be stopping Calvin and Hobbes at the end of the year. This was not a recent or an easy decision, and I leave with some sadness. My interests have shifted however, and 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 more thoughtful pace, with fewer artistic compromises. I have not yet decided on future projects, but my relationship with Universal Press Syndicate will continue.

That so many newspapers would carry Calvin and Hobbes is an honor I'll long be proud of, and I've greatly appreciated your support and indulgence over the last decade. Drawing this comic strip has been a privilege and a pleasure, and I thank you for giving me the opportunity.

Sincerely,

Bill Watterson

— Watterson's letter to newspaper editors announcing his retirement, November 9, 1995

The last strip of Calvin and Hobbes was published on December 31, 1995. Since retiring, Bill Watterson has taken up painting, often drawing landscapes of the woods with his father. He has also published several anthologies of Calvin and Hobbes strips.

Since ending the strip, Watterson has kept away from the public eye and has given no indication of resuming the strip, creating new works based on the characters, or embarking on other projects. He refuses to sign autographs or license his characters, staying true to his stated principles. In previous years, he was known to sneak autographed copies of his books onto the shelves of the Fireside Bookshop, a family-owned bookstore in his home of Chagrin Falls, Ohio. However, after discovering that some people were selling the autographed books online for high prices, he ended this practice as well.

Watterson is currently living in relative seclusion in Chagrin Falls, Ohio,[9] with his wife Melissa. [6][10] On December 21, 1999, a short piece called "Drawn Into a Dark But Gentle World," written by Watterson to mark the forthcoming end of the comic strip Peanuts, was published in the Los Angeles Times[11], and most recently in October of 2005, Watterson answered fifteen questions submitted by readers.[12]

Trivia

  • Is an avid cyclist and has incorporated much of this theme into Calvin and Hobbes.
  • Was vocally critical of Jim Davis and his decision to license his strip Garfield to so many different things, saying that it "cheapened" the originality of the strip. He particularly hated U.S. Acres, citing it as "an abomination" and "an insult to the intelligence."[1]
  • The theme of Calvin's father making Calvin suffer in order to "build character" came from his own father.
  • Had thirty-six of his Sunday cartoon strips exhibited at Ohio State University Cartoon Research Library from September 10 2001 to January 16 2002.
  • First cartoonist to use the word "booger" in a comic strip. (Watterson claimed this title in one of his collections regarding this comic).[13]
  • His interests currently include 17th century Dutch art.[12]
  • Watterson's cat Sprite very much inspired the personality and physical features of Hobbes.

References

  1. ^ a b Andrew Christie (1987). "Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin and Hobbes on cartooning, syndicates, Garfield, Charles Schulz, and editors". Honk Magazine, Issue 2. Retrieved 2006-03-17.
  2. ^ Bill Watterson (2005). "Introduction". The Complete Calvin and Hobbes. Andrew McMeel. pp. 491 (Book 1). ISBN 0-7407-4847-5.
  3. ^ "Winsor McCay: Little Nemo; Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend". Bob's Comics Reviews. November 1996.
  4. ^ Winsor McCay, Richard Marschall (1987). "An Incredible Ride To the End: An appreciation by Bill Watterson". The Best of Little Nemo in Slumberland. Stewart, Tabori, & Chang. p. 195. ISBN 1-55670-647-2. Retrieved 2006-03-17.
  5. ^ Bill Watterson (1995). The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book. Andrews McMeel. p. 208. ISBN 0-8362-0438-7.
  6. ^ a b Bill Watterson (October 27, 1989). "The Cheapening of the Comics". Festival of Cartoon Art, Ohio State University. Retrieved 2006-03-17.
  7. ^ "The Reuben Award, 1975 to present day". National Cartoonist Society. Retrieved 2006-03-17.
  8. ^ Bill Watterson. "The Brief Tongue-in-Cheek Autobiography of Bill Watterson". Retrieved 2006-03-17.
  9. ^ James Renner (November 23, 2003). "Missing! Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson. Last seen in northeast Ohio. Do not approach". Cleveland Scene.
  10. ^ Bill Watterson (May 20, 1990). "Some Thoughts On The Real World By One Who Glimpsed It And Fled". Kenyon College Commencement. Retrieved 2006-03-17.
  11. ^ Bill Watterson (December 21, 1999). "Drawn Into a Dark But Gentle World". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2006-03-17.
  12. ^ a b "Fans From Around the World Interview Bill Watterson". Andrews McMeel. October 4, 2005. Retrieved 2006-03-17. Cite error: The named reference "faniv" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  13. ^ Bill Watterson (1995). The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book. Andrews McMeel. p. 78.
Wikiquote has quotations related to Bill Watterson.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bill_Watterson&oldid=123593667"