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July 13th, 2024

From the book, "Calvin and Hobbes – Sunday Pages 1985 – 1995"

Bill Watterson reflects on creating "Calvin and Hobbes," discussing challenges and joys in cartooning, emphasizing differences between daily and Sunday strips. He details artistic process, color importance, and desire for creative freedom.

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From the book, "Calvin and Hobbes – Sunday Pages 1985 – 1995"

Bill Watterson reflects on his experience creating "Calvin and Hobbes" in an introduction from the book "Calvin and Hobbes - Sunday Pages 1985 - 1995." Watterson discusses the challenges and joys of cartooning, particularly focusing on the differences between daily and Sunday comic strips. He explains how he approached writing and drawing the Sunday strips separately, aiming to utilize the larger space effectively. Watterson also details his artistic process, from drawing on Bristol board to coloring the strips by hand. He highlights the importance of color in creating mood and emotional impact in the comic. Despite facing constraints like fixed panel divisions and limited space in newspapers, Watterson aimed to push the boundaries of traditional comic formats. He expresses a desire for more creative freedom and space to fully realize his storytelling ideas, inspired by older comic strips that had more expansive layouts. Watterson's insights provide a glimpse into the thought and effort behind the beloved "Calvin and Hobbes" comic strip.

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Link Icon 29 comments
By @po - 10 months
My sister just came to visit me in Tokyo and asked what to bring as a gift... I said, "If you can, please bring my Calvin and Hobbes collection for my kids to read." My 10 and 6 year olds have been devouring them ever since.

There is something electric and timeless about these strips. I am certain they don't understand all of the vocabulary but still they read it. It is a format that lures kids in and then uses that attention it has earned to stretch minds. Re-reading it as an adult also rings true in a totally different way. Calvin's parents become sympathetic compatriots.

It's smarter than most adults but captivates kids. It is a decade of work that deserves all the awards that could possibly be given.

By @fermigier - 10 months
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/10/30/the-mysteries-...

I've read, many times (it's a very short read), M. Watterson's (and his friend's John Kascht) latest work, "The Mysteries", and I very much like it. It's a multifaceted fable that explores, among other things, the tension between curiosity and control, and the allure and danger of technological progress. "The Mysteries" takes a more somber and philosophical approach, and its graphical style is radically different from C&H's, but I think it still shares with C&H a deep appreciation for the mysteries of life and the power of imagination to enrich our understanding of the world.

By @tomrod - 10 months
Calvin and Hobbes was a source of happiness during a mostly miserable adolescence. My world is better for Bill Watterson having been in it, even if he'll never know that himself.
By @munchler - 10 months
Fishing the comics section out of the Sunday paper to read a big Calvin and Hobbes strip was a joy. At the peak of the era, our paper (The Washington Post) actually had two separate comics sections, one with C&H on the front and the other with Peanuts. There was also Doonesbury and Bloom County, many other lesser strips, and even magazines like Parade and Potomac, all of which together provided a full morning’s entertainment.
By @putlake - 10 months
Since influential people are on this forum, someone should get Bill Watterson nominated for the Nobel prize in literature. His work deserves that honor as much as, if not more than, Bob Dylan.
By @kejaed - 10 months
I grew up with Calvin and Hobbes collections in the back seat of the car on family vacations. I was 14 when the strip ended so I had lots of historical material to go through at the book stores (!).

We have the anthology at home, I think it’s time to introduce the kids (6 & 9) to Watterson, although my son is already an expert at Calvinball without even knowing it.

What struck me reading this piece was thinking about how all the constraints that Watterson faced just don’t exist today, as he pointed out with his “click of the mouse” comment. Constraints can often lead to creative solutions, I wonder where Calvin and Hobbes would go in today’s landscape.

By @irrational - 10 months
I was a teenager in the 80s. I can remember going outside in the dark before school to get the paper so I could read C&H during breakfast. I didn’t know at the time that they would someday be reprinted in books, so I would cut each one out and tape it into a notebook.

The other main comic strip I enjoyed at that time was The Far Side. Recently I reread both Calvin and Hobbes and the Far Side. Calvin and Hobbes is still just as good as a 50s year old adult (though I find I now identify a lot more with the parents). But, I didn’t find the same thing to be true of The Far Side. Some of the Far Side strips are wonderful - like The School of the Gifted - but most just fell flat for me.

By @ryukoposting - 10 months
I'm not sure how many times I've read this before - at least twice, I think. Much like Calvin and Hobbes, it never gets old.

I'm too young to remember Calvin and Hobbes as a new comic. But, my parents had a complete anthology and I must have read the entire thing half a dozen times, cover to cover. I think Calvin and Hobbes informed the way I try to look at life. Embrace spontaneity and use your imagination. It's easy to forget that stuff.

By @optimalsolver - 10 months
For fans of both Calvin and Frank Herbert's Dune, I give you Calvin & Muad'Dib:

https://calvinanddune.tumblr.com/

By @elicash - 10 months
Here's my list of 34 personal favorite C&H comics:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XryL7duzj_WZEy0dtdDO48_s...

By @tempodox - 10 months
If you want to see them all:

https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1985/11/18

By @max_ - 10 months
On a long enough time line all games become Calvin Ball
By @u235bomb - 10 months
I can't really remember how or by whom I was introduced to Calvin and Hobbes. There was for years a peripheral awareness of it existing and eventually - reasons unknown - I purchased one of the books collecting strips. Properly reading Calvin and Hobbes for the first time is one of those experiences that leave a lasting imprint. The only other comic strip that had this lasting effect on me was Cul de Sac by Richard Thompson.

https://www.gocomics.com/culdesac/2007/11/11

By @alsetmusic - 10 months
Stupendous Man is one of my tattoos. Seeing it always makes me happy. What a uniquely great comic. It has been an incredible influence in my life.

The first time I was reading “Something Under the Bed is Drooling,” when I got to the Mr Bun strip, my brain broke from the art change. I was extremely confused until I got to the end. To be a kid again…

Watterson has a new book: The Mysteries.

By @atum47 - 10 months
Everytime a girlfriend broke up with me the first thing I always did was to throw away the gifts from the relationship.

The only one exception was the box set of Calvin and Hobbes, the complete edition.

I don't care she left me, the box stays.

By @idrathernotsay - 10 months
Tim needs to fix his expired security certificate, at least according to Bitdefender

https://i.imgur.com/wZCSESE.png

By @KingOfCoders - 10 months
I've used Calvin and Hobbes to learn English.
By @block_dagger - 10 months
It's admirable that he traded his core competence for new subjects later in life.
By @tomrandle - 10 months
I was introduced to Calvin and Hobbes (as well as Sam and Max) as a kid by a taxi driver when on holiday in Florida in the 90s. Loved both. It’s been a delight to re read them with my son recently. I somewhat lament it’s not possible to by any merchandise though! I’d love to have a big print of the pair in their radio flyer crashing down the hill!
By @jf - 10 months
This is the essay that introduced me to Krazy Kat and the main motivation for my project to find Krazy Kat Sunday comics in the public domain: https://joel.franusic.com/krazy_kat/
By @mdrzn - 10 months
Great timing, I just purchased The Complete Calvin and Hobbes collection in paperback!

[0] https://www.amazon.com/dp/1449433251

By @tracerbulletx - 10 months
Really glad there is still a solid group of people who recognize the significance of his work. It's hard to explain to someone who doesn't resonate with it, but it's the most important fiction of my childhood and still to this day.
By @matrix12 - 10 months
There is also some fan created extensions. https://imgur.com/gallery/all-bacon-hobbes-comics-i-could-fi...
By @kragen - 10 months
even more than movies and rock-and-roll, comic strips were the primary art form of the 20th century, making charles schulz the most influential artist in history (on the public, not on art). watterson was the greatest of the greats. i wonder if he published any later work under a traveling-wilburys-style pseudonym to avoid it being overshadowed by calvin & hobbes, the way outland was engulfed by breathed's history, or the way nobody knows what songs the rolling stones wrote last year
By @spacecadet - 10 months
I still have all of the Calvin and Hobbes books in storage. Some of the black and white pages were carefully watercolored by me as a teen.
By @froggertoaster - 10 months
Anyone else struck by how captivating Bill Watterson is as a writer, both in C&H and out?
By @wombatpm - 10 months
In college I had Calvin and Hobbes in German. It was the best way to learn vocabulary
By @Scubabear68 - 10 months
Calvin and Hobbes was the XKCD of the 80s. Absolutely brilliant.
By @MaryBeew - 10 months
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