Posted on 10/22/2005 10:27:04 PM PDT by 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.
[4] Whew! I am not too exhausted to see the humour in it.
should have read:
[4] Whew! I am MUCH too exhausted to see the humour in it.
I like Pickles and Drabble, and usually Pearls Before Swine.
I'd still like to figure out how Calvin got the snowman to hold up a big, heavy head with those spindly little branch arms. A 6-year old that can defy the laws of physics is not someone to be trifled with.
Yes! 'Tumbleweeds' was an excellent strip.
'Born Loser' and 'B.C.' are also excellent.
When I was a kid ('60s) I used to read a strip called 'Katzenjammer Kids' which was interesting, but a tad disturbing (for reasons that I don't remember).
Fair enough. I'm sorry I exposed you to modern humor. Please feel free to return to your shell.
Bill Watterson is one of my everyday heroes. I love Calvin & Hobbes - I had no idea he was so young (i.e., my age).
There's treasure everywhere.
There did to be something of a distance between them all. I often found CALVIN AND HOBBES to be a bittersweet strip, for Calvin was ultimately a very lonely kid.... no real friends except for an imaginary (?) tiger, and parents whose love for him was rarely overtly displayed.
Calvin actually had a great deal in common with Charlie Brown. Both were wise beyond their years; both were confused and frustrated by the world around them. It was also painfully clear that neither Charlie nor Calvin were equipped to survive in that world as the grown-ups they were doomed to become. Calvin merely came up with far more imaginative and hilarious means of dealing with life; his was an eternal childhood, and we always got the sense that was for the best.
-Dan
I dislike it entirely because you have recommended it. Trying to use big words in an insulting manner only makes you look foolish.
I will try to resist saying that I am surprised that you have ever heard of Botticelli. Oops! It just slipped out.
G'night Turbo.
Ping
"Don't you just hate it when your boogers freeze?" A deathless line from Calvin.
Namsman sends.
Now you're just being a pompous jerk. I mean, really. This whole smug, condescending attitude is rather childish.
I imagine you think you're smarter than the rest of us lesser mortals, because you understand the existential nuances of this "modern" masterpiece, and I'm just too much of an ign'ant Goober to communicate with someone on your higher plane. Perhaps I should be grateful that you even condescend to communicate with us intellectually-challenged nimrods, in the hope of enlightening us with comic strips.
Get over yourself. It's just a poorly drawn, unfunny comic strip that is quirky, offbeat and rather dull. You like it. I don't. It's not the end of my world.
"There is something really admirable about somebody who creates something wonderful and then doesn't seek attention for the rest of his life or try to milk his creation for every last dime."
You must be referring to Garfield? That comic strip seems to be just a continuing regurgitation of previous ideas from the 80's.
"You must be referring to Garfield? That comic strip seems to be just a continuing regurgitation of previous ideas from the 80's."
Among others....
Apparently they are making Rocky 6, the Geriatric years.
Well said, Choose Ye ... glad that someone is making sense at this time of the early morning.
Cheers!
caryatid
-Dan
Calvin & Hobbes, Bloom County, Peanuts were always my source of grins from the funny papers.......Red and Rover has kinda replaced Calvin and Hobbes these days......Non Sequitur is my favorite along with the surviving peanuts strip.
The movie second hand lions kinda involved the strip from bloom county didn't it ? Or at least the strip creator BB....???
They just had Berke Breathed draw the panels that the movie character drew. It wasn't his story or anything like that.
Breathed is still an amazing artist, even though he has apparently misplaced his funny bone.
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