Missing Calvin (and Hobbes)
September 1, 2006While going through my daily reads online, I read a short entry in Drawn! dated a couple of days back about a website that features rare Calvin and Hobbes strips. Nostalgia hit hard. As fans know, the Calvin and Hobbes strip lasted only ten years 
(1985-1995), with the most unceremonious departure (in my opinion) of creator Bill Watterson from the comic scene. A lot of people mourned the loss, because it was really a little bit of happiness that so many held on to in an already unmagical world. (Read the fan letters posted on the Official Calvin and Hobbes site.) Watterson’s gift for story and words and capturing our everyday realities with such conciseness is rare, and incomparable.
On the site, Bill Watterson’s press letter regarding his departure goes, “This is not a recent or 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.”
The comic strip is that unique medium that is at once full of possibility and limitions at the same time, and its continuously growing limitations seem to be what pushed Watterson to finally leave. If you look at his generous illustrations in some Sunday Strips, for example, it reveals the impressive artististry that went into that small allotted space. As much for Watterson as for his readers, compromising any more would be an unacceptable thing.
Aside: The emergence of webcomics has changed the limitations and the face of comics and cartoons, and it would seem that older definitions of the medium, like that of Understanding Comics author Scott McCloud’s (”Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer”), would be rendered obsolete soon–as McCloud himself admits. What that implies on the issues of comic strip creators with the newspapers they are printed in is yet to be fully seen.
Aside of an aside: These days, McCloud is answering more questions about the technological exchange than anything else in comics, but read his interviews, like one is Popmatters, to get a better overview of the medium, including existing nuances in terminology, like between comics and cartoons.
Now as I was originally saying… Anyone who loved the Calvin and Hobbes strips will love Calvin and Hobbes: Magic on Paper. There’s a wonderful section of writings by Watterson and rare art, including Watterson’s attempts at comics outside of Calvin and Hobbes. If it’s still not enough, Magic on Paper’s links page leads to some of the best Calvin links around, including The Calvin and Hobbes Album, which even has foreign Calvin strips (yes, useless to me, but nonetheless fun to go through), Digital Calvin and Hobbes, which includes games and a create-a-strip section, and The Calvin and Hobbes Page at Craig’s, which has a whole bunch of information on the strips. Oh yeah, of course, there’s also the Wikipedia entry.
All images borrowed/stolen uncermoniously off the rare collection on the Calvin and Hobbes: Magic on Paper site.
