I have severely mixed emotions about Bill Watterson, mostly in a philosophical frame.
On the positive side, I am a great fan of his Calvin and Hobbes work over many years, and would quickly state that it had a significant influence on my developing worldview. As I grew both as a person and artist, I took great interest in his pushback against commercialism, and later, his efforts with the Sunday comics. There was a fighting spirit, a man of principle, who leveraged his success in ways that may seem trivial or needlessly difficult to regular business people, but are fundamental in the creative sphere where exploiting an artist's work for maximum profit is typically the norm. For these aspects of his career, I'm eternally grateful.
Here's the part where people look at me like I'm just being a jerk: After reading as much of his interviews, panel contributions and commencement speeches as possible, I discovered a profoundly selfish and hypocritical man. Time and again, he spoke highly of the importance of art, of doing art as much as possible, and how important his particular art, that of comics, was to the overall conversation about life. What bothers me the most is that once he obtained financial stability and security that, roughly speaking, only 1% of artists in any genre can hope to obtain, he straight up quit. He had, for lack of a better term, the world as his audience to continue putting out material on his own terms, and he did nothing. Nothing.
To me, I find that immensely conflicting. I love Calvin and Hobbes and always will. I embrace many of the lessons that Bill Watterson's career gave me about success, commercialism, and integrity. All that noted, I will never hesitate to claim that a real artist doesn't just up and quit and walk away because they can afford to. A real artist can never afford to quit because it's what they do, and art without an audience is simply selfish folly.
Will I try to get my hands on this interview? Of course. Will it be painful to read, simply because of my personal perspective? Absolutely...
Honest question: Why do you feel entitled to more of his work?
I believe it's more useful to be thankful for something that was given than to be angry that you didn't get more.
Watterson:
> This isn't as hard to understand as people try to make it. By the end of ten years, I'd said pretty much everything I had come there to say. It's always better to leave the party early. If I had rolled along with the strip's popularity and repeated myself for another five, ten, or twenty years, the people now "grieving" for Calvin and Hobbes would be wishing me dead and cursing newspapers for running tedious, ancient strips like mine instead of acquiring fresher, livelier talent. And I'd be agreeing with them. I think some of the reason Calvin and Hobbes still finds an audience today is because I chose not to run the wheels off it. I've never regretted stopping when I did.
Why do you insist this is about me? I'm simply discussing what he said about his own philosophy and then comparing that with his actions. They don't reconcile.
Considering how many great artists "die before their time" and combining that with his own words, I see that as difficult to reconcile. It's one thing to admit to doing something for a paycheck, and there's pride to be had in honest work. To me it's dishonest to claim art is the primary driver and then, well, give up on doing art. What part of that do you disagree with?
Edit:
I never said I expected more Calvin and Hobbes, and if you think you're putting something forward with that quote I don't already know, you're wrong.
He had a platform to produce all kinds of other creative, influential, or interesting art, and he chose not to do anything. Well, maybe he did and it's all up in his attic. What good does an attic full of art do for the world?
Maybe he ran out of things to say. Some artist die before their time, others sadly won't shut up and end up ruining their own art.
Anyway, as far as I am to understand he couldn't see himself escaping the shadow of C&H, so he secluded himself and put his art in the attic, feeling that its release wouldn't better the world as long as people would just respond to it as "this isn't C&H"
He's not trying to pass a law requiring Bill Watterson to make more art.
He wants this guy, with a voice and an audience, to make use of that. Few people in life get both, and it is disappointing to watch someone who's gotten both just walk away from those two things.
He quit on a high note, before the strip became tired overly repetitive. This is totally consistent with his actions and the viewpoints he have expressed, where he consistently have stressed putting quality above quantity.
You may have liked him to act differently, and continue producing to satisfy your craving for quantity. But that he have different values than you does not make him selfish or a hypocrite.
I still don't see how Watterson doing nothing is harmful or hypocritical. He felt like he didn't have anything more to give. He refused to put out something less than his standards. While I'm sad he never found anything worth saying, I'm glad he didn't waste words saying nothing.
He did nothing in public. From what I've heard he spent a lot of time puttering around the town he grew up in and painting. Maybe there'll be a show/book/whatever of them someday. Maybe not.
When he retired, he'd also shaped a generation's ideas of what a comic strip about a kid should be. Hell, of what comics should be, period - wander around a comic book convention asking people what their big influences are, and a lot of people will mention his name. He'll probably be remembered for another hundred years by anyone who cares to skim the history of the Great Comic Strips of the Twentieth Century.
You do something like that, I think you're allowed to retire and do work solely for yourself.
I have of course no idea if Watterson is capable of producing a new work of the same quality, and neither have you I presume. Some artists are one-hit wonders, but Watterson have on a daily basis produced original work of consistently high quality for a decade. This is far more than can be expected by any artist in any media.
In any case it speaks to the strength of his work that you hope for more, but it is disingenuous to call him selfish or a hypocrite because of this.
> Time and again, he spoke highly of the importance of art, of doing art as much as possible
You should check out Dali's bio, the man got up, ate his breakfast and then sat down to paint religiously from 9 to 5, everyday, no exceptions, no distractions.
Awesome, I will note that and pursue it in time. That sounds very inspiring. As a writer I do enjoy the guidance both from Stephen King's craft discussions, but also the James A Michener Writer's Handbook [1]. Art is work, no doubt in my mind.
Other authors, writers, etc., have again and again spoken of the need to focus, some of them go to a cabin (forgot her name), others go to a hotel room (again, forgot her name), others go to a small office a couple of blocks away from their home (forgot his name), just so they can focus.
I thought he had said that he quit because he didn't like being a celebrity, and people were constantly invading his privacy and considered his personal life fair game because he was famous. I even heard a rumor that he painted a watercolor landscape every day and then burned it so no fans would be creeping around trying to get their hands on one.
Another perspective on art is that it is the process of making the art. The pieces that come out the end for people to look at are then merely the waste produced.
That's a thought-provoking perspective. It made me wonder whether BW has more to say, and what his plans are for how to say it.
A charitable hypothesis is that he thought that his existing work said what he considered to be most important in the clearest way, and that anything further he said would detract from it.
Another charitable possibility is that he knows what he has yet to say, but he thought "we" weren't ready to hear it yet for some reason (e.g. the marriage of the comic medium and its commercial dimensions made saying it too complicated or risky. Maybe other reasons.)
I think it's easy to assume that BW acted selfishly by doing nothing. Well, not easy in every way--your perspective isn't in the majority, and the pushback from other commenters demonstrates that, I think. What I mean by "easy" is just that I can see his behavior as being in-line with human frailties (easier to talk the talk than walk the walk). I know it would be hard for me to choose to labor, creating my art, when I'd already achieved success.
I'm hoping that you could forgive his failures as being just the ordinary human kind, or maybe even consider the possibility that he might not have failed at all, but was instead in a situation where it didn't make sense to produce more.
But I like your argument a lot, because it reminds me that we have a responsibility to more than our own welfare and success. If we can do something to help the world, we should, and those (like BW) with more opportunity have more responsibility.
> art without an audience is simply selfish folly.
That's like, your opinion, man.
I've heard Watterson does indeed paint, and has showed his paintings to immediate friends and family. There were rumours he was actually exhibiting, on a very small scale and under pseudonym, in his own little community.
"An audience" does not mean "a mass audience". An audience of one (his mother, for example) is still an audience.
Is there a point here? He should have done "something" (unspecified). He quit because he could afford too, because the idea he quit because he wanted to or was ready to or it was time is unthinkable, or something. Mixed emotions because he didn't do what you would do, or something. Because artists don't do that, or something.
On the positive side, I am a great fan of his Calvin and Hobbes work over many years, and would quickly state that it had a significant influence on my developing worldview. As I grew both as a person and artist, I took great interest in his pushback against commercialism, and later, his efforts with the Sunday comics. There was a fighting spirit, a man of principle, who leveraged his success in ways that may seem trivial or needlessly difficult to regular business people, but are fundamental in the creative sphere where exploiting an artist's work for maximum profit is typically the norm. For these aspects of his career, I'm eternally grateful.
Here's the part where people look at me like I'm just being a jerk: After reading as much of his interviews, panel contributions and commencement speeches as possible, I discovered a profoundly selfish and hypocritical man. Time and again, he spoke highly of the importance of art, of doing art as much as possible, and how important his particular art, that of comics, was to the overall conversation about life. What bothers me the most is that once he obtained financial stability and security that, roughly speaking, only 1% of artists in any genre can hope to obtain, he straight up quit. He had, for lack of a better term, the world as his audience to continue putting out material on his own terms, and he did nothing. Nothing.
To me, I find that immensely conflicting. I love Calvin and Hobbes and always will. I embrace many of the lessons that Bill Watterson's career gave me about success, commercialism, and integrity. All that noted, I will never hesitate to claim that a real artist doesn't just up and quit and walk away because they can afford to. A real artist can never afford to quit because it's what they do, and art without an audience is simply selfish folly.
Will I try to get my hands on this interview? Of course. Will it be painful to read, simply because of my personal perspective? Absolutely...