'Calvin and Hobbes' Creator Keeps Privacy

Associated Press ^ | October 22, 2005 | Joe Milicia

[Charles Henrickson]

Maybe someday, officials will put up a statue marking this quaint village as the birthplace of "Calvin and Hobbes."

Just don't expect cartoonist Bill Watterson to attend the unveiling ceremony. It's been nearly 10 years since he abruptly quit drawing one of the most popular comic strips of all time. Since then, he's been as absent as the precocious Calvin and his pet tiger, err, stuffed animal, Hobbes.

Some call Watterson reclusive. Others say he just likes his privacy.

"He's an introspective person," says his mother, Kathryn, standing at the front door her home, its yard covered by a tidy tangle of black-eyed Susans and other wildflowers. It's where Watterson grew up. Calvin lived there too, so to speak. Watterson used the well-kept, beige Cape Cod-style house as the model for Calvin's home.

You might even expect Calvin to come bounding out the door with Hobbes in tow, the screen door banging behind them. After all, the guy on the front porch kind of resembles Calvin's dad. Readers will remember him as the exasperated patent attorney who enjoyed gummy oatmeal and jogging in 20-degree weather.

Sure enough, Watterson's father, Jim, has a sheen of sweat on his neck, not from a run but from the 73-year-old's three-mile morning walk.

Watterson has acknowledged satirizing his father, who is now a semiretired patent attorney, in the strip. Jim Watterson says whenever Calvin's dad told him that something he didn't want to do "builds character," they were words he had spoken to his cartoonist son.

After "Calvin and Hobbes" ended, Jim Watterson and his son would paint landscapes together, setting up easels along the Chagrin River or other vistas. He laughed that sometimes they'd spend more time choosing a site than painting. But they haven't painted together for years.

So what's Watterson been up to since ending "Calvin and Hobbes?" It's tough to say.

His parents will say only that he's happy, but they won't say where he lives, and the cartoonist could not be reached for an interview.

His former editor, Lee Salem, also remains mum, saying only that as a painter Watterson started with watercolors and has evolved to oils.

"He's in a financial position where he doesn't need to meet the deadlines anymore," Salem says.

Watterson's parents respect — but have no explanation for — their son's extremely private nature. It doesn't run in the family. Kathryn is a former village councilwoman and Jim is seeking his fourth council term this fall. Their other son, Tom, is a high school teacher in Austin, Texas.

Bill Watterson, 47, hasn't made a public appearance since he delivered the commencement speech in 1990 at his alma mater, Kenyon College. But he recently welcomed some written questions from fans to promote the Oct. 4 release of the three-volume "The Complete Calvin and Hobbes," which contains every one of the 3,160 strips printed during its 10-year run.

Among his revelations:

• He reads newspaper comics, but doesn't consider this their golden age.

• He's never attended any church.

• He's currently interested in art from the 1600s.

Salem, who edited thousands of "Calvin and Hobbes" strips at Universal Press Syndicate, says that Watterson is private and media shy, not a recluse. Salem didn't want to see the strip end, but understood Watterson's decision.

"He came to a point where he thought he had no more to give to the characters," Salem says.

"Calvin and Hobbes" appeared in more than 2,400 newspapers during its run, one of the few strips to reach an audience that large.

Its success was rooted in the freshness of Calvin — an imaginative 6-year-old who has the immaturity of a child and the psychological complexity of a 40-year-old. As for Hobbes, the device of Calvin viewing him as alive and everybody else seeing him as a stuffed animal was simply brilliant, Salem says.

Their all-encompassing bond of friendship — being able to share joy and have fun together, yet get angry and frustrated with one another — was another reason for the strip's success.

Universal would welcome Watterson back along with "Calvin and Hobbes" or any other characters he dreams up. "He knows the door's open and he knows where we are," Salem says.

There are few signs of Watterson or "Calvin and Hobbes" in Chagrin Falls, a town of 4,000 that has evolved from a manufacturing hub centered on its namesake falls to an upscale area of stately homes and giant maple trees.

A Godzilla-sized Calvin is depicted wreaking havoc on Chagrin Falls on the back cover of "The Essential Calvin and Hobbes," released in 1988. He's carrying off the Popcorn Shop, where sweet smells have flowed from its spot on the falls for about 100 years.

Fireside Book Shop, located just out of earshot of the water's roar, carries 15 different "Calvin and Hobbes" books — customers used to be able to find autographed copies. Store employee Lynn Mathews says Watterson's mother used to deliver the signed copies to raise money for charity or just to help the book shop. That ended when the cartoonist discovered that some ended up on eBay, she said.

The demand remains, though.

"I get a couple e-mails a month from people looking for signed books," said Jean Butler, Fireside's officer manager.

Watterson and his wife, Melissa, moved earlier this year from their home in the village — a century house on a hill between downtown and the high school, where the mascot is a tiger.

As a child, Watterson knew he would be an astronaut or a cartoonist. "I kept my options open until seventh grade, but when I stopped understanding math and science, my choice was made," he wrote in the introduction to "The Complete Calvin and Hobbes."

He loved "Peanuts" as a child and started drawing comics. He majored in political science at Kenyon. Thinking he could blend the two subjects, he became a political cartoonist but was fired from his first job at the Cincinnati Post after a few months. So he took a job designing car and grocery ads, but continued cartooning, even though several strip ideas were rejected.

But Universal liked "Calvin and Hobbes" and launched its run Nov. 18, 1985, in 35 newspapers. Calvin caught Hobbes in a tiger trap with a tuna sandwich in the first strip. He spent the next 10 years driving his parents crazy, annoying his crush, Susie Derkins, and playing make-believe as his alter egos Spaceman Spiff and Stupendous Man.

Many of the best moments, though, were time spent alone with his pal, Hobbes.

"The end of summer is always hard on me, trying to cram in all the goofing off I've been meaning to do," Calvin tells Hobbes in an Aug. 24, 1987 strip, the two sitting beneath a tree.

Watterson ended the strip on Dec. 31, 1995, with a statement: "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."

The last strip shows Calvin and Hobbes sledding off after a new fallen snow. "It's a magical world, Hobbes, ol' buddy ... let's go exploring!" Calvin says in the final two panels.

Fans cried out in letters for Watterson to change his mind. Some, like Watterson's parents, say the funny pages haven't been the same since.

"It was like getting a letter from home," Jim Watterson says of reading his son's work each morning.

People continue to ask the Wattersons if their son will ever send Calvin and his buddy Hobbes on new adventures.

"He might draw something else, but he won't do that again," Kathryn Watterson says.

[SandwicheGuy]

I'm sorry if you can't separate content not appropriate for children from the point of such content, which is designed for adults who can make such judgments.

Comics are funny and should make you smile. Profanity laced into a comic does not turn the comic into adult humor, it merely profanes it. Who cares about the context of the comic when you can't even see it for the profanity? Unless, or course you like profanity...Whatever blows your hair back.

[beelzepug]

"I liked Smokey Stover."

1506 nix-nix and Notary Sojac to you for having a good memory.

[Choose Ye This Day]

As far as discontinuing the "Achewood bashing," I already have. I don't like it, as I have said, for the very reasons I have stated. But when you say:

I don’t think Turbopilot’s trying to be like the elitist artists, trying to convince you that the reason you don’t “see that the single blue brushstroke represents man’s inhumanity to man” is because you’re not intellectual or sensitive enough.

You obviously haven't read the kid's posts. He calls us "anti-intellectual." He tells me to "crawl back in [my] shell" if I'm not willing to "open up" my mind to a friggin' comic. He states that he knows "with a high degree of probability" that he is smarter than me.

If that isn't pseudo-intellectual snobbery, what is?

[Scoutmaster]

You are correct.

I should have said "I don't think that when Turbopilot first said that we should look at a couple of month's worth of comic strips that he was using the elitist artist ploy. He was cluing us in to the fact that a significant part of the humor, if you find the strip funny at all, comes from knowing the characters and from repeat taglines."

The rest of the discussion got out of hand (in some cases, on both sides).

My contribution, which may not have any value, was my realization that a degree of the humor in a favorite comic strip comes from a recurrent situation or theme. Part of a Lucy/Charlie Brown/football strip's humor came from the fact that you KNEW she was going to pull the ball away. Having seen 50 similar strips made the 51st funnier to you than a person who saw the 51st strip having never heard of Charlie Brown.

Watterson was brilliant with Calvin & Hobbs because he placed the characters in familiar (i.e., repetitive) situations without making the punchlines repetitive or predictable.

[AFreeBird]

[AFreeBird]

            The Official Rules of Calvinball


1.1. All players must wear a Calvinball mask (See Calvinball Equipment - 2.1). No one questions the masks (Figure 2.1).


*IMPORTANT -- The following rules are subject to be changed, amended, or dismissed by any player(s) involved.


1.2. Any player may declare a new rule at any point in the game (Figure 1.2). The player may do this audibly or silently depending on what zone (Refer to Rule 1.5) the player is in.


1.3. A player may use the Calvinball (See Calvinball Equipment - 2.2)in any way the player see fits, from causal injury to self-reward.


1.4. Any penalty legislation may be in the form of pain, embarassment, or any other abasement the rulee deems fit to impose on his opponent.


1.5. The Calvinball Field (See Calvinball Equipment - 2.3) should consist of areas, or zones, which are governed by a set of rules declared spontaneously and inconsistently by players. Zones may be appear and disappear as often and wherever the player decides. Zones are often named for their effect. For example, a corollary zone would enable a player to make a corollary (sub-rule) to any rule that has benn, will be, or might be declared. A pernicious poem place would require the intruder to do what the name implies. Or an opposite zone would enable a player to declare reverse playibility on the others. (Remember, the player would declare this zone oppositely by not declaring it.) (Figure 1.5a and 1.5b)


1.6. Flags (Calvinball Equipment 2.3) shall be named by players whom shall also assign the power and rules which shall govern that flag for particular moment in that particular game(Figure 1.6).


1.7. Songs are an integral part of Calvinball and verses must be sung spontaneously through the game when randomly assigned events occur. These random events will be named and pointed out after the player causes the event.



1.8. Score may be kept or disregarded. In the event that score is kept, it shall have no bearing on the game nor shall it have any logical consistency to it. (Legal scores include 'Q to 12', 'BW-109 to YU-34, and 'Nosebleed to Trousers'.) (Figure 1.9)


1.9. Any rule above that is carried out during the course of the game may never be used again in the event that it causes the same result as a previous game. Calvinball games may never be played the same way twice (Figure 1.9)

Calvinball Equipment

2.1. Mask - All participants are required to wear a mask - Figure 1.1


2.2. Calvinball - A Calvinball may be a soccerball, volleyball, or any other reasonable or unreasonable, spherical or non-spherical object - Figure 2.1a and Figure 2.1b




2.3. Calvinball Field - The Calvinball Field should be any well-sized field, preferably with trees, rocks, grass, creeks, and other natural hindrances to health.


2.4. Miscellaneous - Other optional equipment include flags, wickets (especially of the time-fracture variety), and anything else the players wish to include (Figure 2.4).

    ** This rulebook is not required, nor necessary to play Calvinball.
  Special Thanks to the Calvinball Founders Bill Watterson, Calvin, and Hobbes.

[Interesting Times]

Dilbert isn't a comic strip. It's a documentary.

Yeah. What he said.

[ozzymandus]

I loved "Calvin and Hobbes" and "the Far Side". Those were the days when the comics page was great reading. The great strips only last a few years, since the geniuses who create them burn out.

[martin_fierro]

For years, I'd read the occasional isolated "Dilbert" strip and think, "Eh -- mildly amusing."

Then I read though a couple of Scott Adams' "Dilbert" books, where ongoing series of the strip were all in one place. Couldn't stop laughing!

Got a chance to talk with Adams once on a call-in talk show. Asked him if there was any rhyme or reason behind his choice of characters like "Bob the Dinosaur" or "Catbert" or "Ratbert," etc. He said there wasn't.

[RightWingAtheist]

Ah yes, when he was caught spending the night reading the Bible with a fiftyish matron. Was that before or after he shot up the neighborhood when he was depressed over the outcome of a love triangle with Jeanne Fitzpatrick and Cornelia Guest?

[Big Guy and Rusty 99]

I actually got the boston herald every day just for "The Far Side". Every Christmas My Mom buys me a Far Side book. She's been doing it since the late 80's.

[metalcor]

I seem to remember an interview with Watterston in which he spoke of his love for Schultz, but barely hid his disappointment in how the strip declined as the marketing went up. Swore he would never market the image of Calvin and Hobbes in any way--stuffed dolls, action figures, t-shirts, or Tv specials would never even be considered. I am conflicted as to whether I find that admirable or not. Those things, if done properly, could have given as much pleasure as the strip did. But it was his to do with as he pleased, and he went out on top of his game, like Jordan....wait, he kind of ruined that by coming back, didn't he?

[TheRedSoxWinThePennant]

I have every Calvin and Hobbes book. Undoubtedly the funniest comic of all time!

[mwyounce]

Yes, I love Foxtrot as well!

A couple other good ones that I haven't seen mentioned are "Arlo & Janis" and
"Frank & Ernest."

[MarkL]

Besides, Watterson's stance wasn't anti-capitalist.... it was in deference to the idea that a comic strip can be a work of ART, and that art should not be commercially prostituted. If anything, CALVIN AND HOBBES is loved and revered not in spite of its relative commercial scarceness, but BECAUSE its creator fought to keep just anything from being done with it.

My "Grampa" used to work for King Features, as both a colorist and inker. He thought that Waterson was something of a genius, as he had seen both his C&H work, as well as some of his "real" art. The man's got great talent. I wish him well.

Mark

[MarkL]

wait a minute that one had Opus the penguin right?

And Bill the Cat! Ack! Phhht!

Mark

[MarkL]

Artistic merit is a bunch of crap ,by itself. Do people seriously believe the great artists need no food , clothing, shelter, or companionship ? The great artists of the old days were often "kept" by wealthy princes, etc, so the idea of prostituting art is laughable. Artists , like everyone, need money. They sell their art to those who want it for whatever reason. An artist with no sales starves.

At the same time, an "artist" doesn't really create a character. You might want to view his C&H work more as than of an author than an artist. He's created a number of characters, who I've come to love over the years. He's obviously put a lot of thought, work, and even love into those characters. He doesn't want to see these characters used in ways he doesn't like. Besides, it seems that he DOES have all he needs for his material purposes, the characters are his property, and I say, "more power to him."

I miss reading new adventures of Calvin and Hobbes, but even reading ones I've seen a hundred times will still bring smiles to my face. I'm happy that a man who's given me so much pleasure can do what he wants.

Mark

[Boazo]

Thanks, Bookmarked,First one I looked at had me laughing.

[PennsylvaniaMom]

Agnes. I really am coming to enjoy Agnes in the Trib each day. Maybe because she is just a little cranky too.

[zeugma]

I gotta agree. The original was in color though. Every time I see that one, it makes me grin.