That strip meant so much to me, as an 80s kid, most of my vocabulary came from it. I do wish he’d see his fans as kindred spirits as opposed to strangers to keep out. We’d all be fascinated to hear what he has to say
Man, I'd love to get some retrospective thoughts from Watterson. Could still happen, who knows! The next best thing has been his commentaries on the work in books like "The 10th Anniversary Book" and "The Sunday Pages 1985-1995", worth checking out if you want that over-the-shoulder view of the artist at work.
After retiring from the service, I chose to revisit my childhood passion and went to art school.
Every single class began with a discussion of our inspirations, and Bill Watterson was the only name that was never left off my list - as much for his unwavering integrity as his incredible talent. I would love it if he were more willing to embrace his celebrity.
However, he has made it clear that he prefers his privacy. If I may be so bold as to speak for all of us as fans of his work, we owe him that.
It did to me, as well. There was a time in junior high where I could literally name the page numbers of the books the strips were on. Both my kids now love them nearly as much as I do. It is truly magical.
There's no comic strip now that's even within an order of magnitude of how big Calvin and Hobbes was by the end, is there? I even remember a national news anchor reading out the final strip on air. Let's go exploring.
In mid-1990, I was 16 years old. In our small town, I was an extremely rare breed of high schooler: nerdy, yet athletic, a glasses-wearing omnivorous bookworm, who loved watching sports/TV/movies almost as much as I liked reading books. Plus, my name is Gary which, even back then, wasn’t very common. I’m not sure if all of that brought me up to “unicorn” status, but it had to be close.
I was nearing the end of an epic (for me) sophomore slump and was pretty sure that I was going to fail Algebra 2. The worst part of the situation is that it wasn’t my fault. My evil stepmother (a title that she had worked hard to earn) drove us to school and we always got to my school late.
Algebra 2 was my first class (because what sleepy teenager doesn’t want to focus on math between 8-9 AM?) and my teacher made a snarky comment every day that I was late. Which was every day. At first, I would try to catch up on the day’s lesson, but I soon realized that I was too far behind and was never going to catch up. Instead of failing for an hour, I’d get to my desk, put my head down, and read my latest book until class ended.
It was during May of this bad funk era that I read the first of a series of Calvin and Hobbes strips that featured our favorite boy/tiger duo playing “Calvinball” AKA the world’s least organized sport.
I remember a more classically-nerdy classmate and I talking excitedly about this new game’s total awesomeness and how much we wanted to play it. His name was Brian Everding. Which is weird, because the next street over from my house is called Everding. It’s probably just a coincidence…
The idea of playing a sport where the only permanent rule “is that you can’t play it the same way twice” instantly captivated me. It was such a brilliantly executed and hilarious idea to me (I LOVED the songs), but the sheer chaos of it also made sense to me on a much deeper level than I realized. It resonated.
Two years ago, I finally found out why that class (and most things in my life involving executive decision making and/or organization from about the 6th grade until now) was so difficult. It only took them (whomever “they” are) 49 years to finally clinically diagnose me with ADHD. It explained so many things about much of my life to me, not the least of which was my love for Calvin and Hobbes in general, and the utter chaos of Calvinball in particular.
My brain works exactly like a never-ending Calvinball game: All chaos, all the time. As you may have guessed, my life has been quite chaotic, as well. It hasn’t always been fun, but it’s certainly been interesting.
Whether or not he wants to talk about Calvin and Hobbes (or even acknowledge that it exists) means very little to me. If I could say one thing to him, it would be this:
“Thank you, Mr. Watterson, for all of the joy your creation has brought me over the years.”
Gary, thank you so much for this comment. This was quite a read! And man, it really encourages me to up my comment-on-a-post game! It means absolutely everything that you took the time to read my work and then to engage with it as you did.
So, I have to ask — did you end up flunking Algebra 2??
For our homework in that class, we were given the solutions and had to show the correct work to come up with said solutions on our papers. By this point, I hadn’t turned in months worth of homework. Our math teacher gave everyone who had fallen behind, a last-day-of-school deadline to turn in all remaining late homework.
So, I waited.
On the last day of the school year, I took the first 7 or 8 homework pages (I believe it was one page per week) that I hadn’t turned in and dummied up some mathematical-looking equations all over them — along with a heaping helping of general scribbles, plus random numbers & letters to fill in all of the blank spots.
Then, I put them in order on top of a bunch of blank homework pages. On the last page, I wrote something like this (I don’t recall my exact wording):
“Mr. Spinas,
I’m sorry that I didn’t do or turn in my homework. I fell too far behind early in the year and didn’t understand how to do the equations. I hope that you won’t fail me.
Thank You,
Gary Davis”
Satisfied that it sounded pitiful, without outright begging him not to flunk me, I took the stack of “homework” over to the industrial-strength stapler. In a flash of inspiration, I decided that it couldn’t hurt to bank on him not wanting to deal with a problem on the last day of school. I took the stack and stapled it twice, per corner, on all four corners of the stack. Then, I put a couple of staples right in the center of the stack, for good measure.
When I got my report card, I tore it open and scanned down for the Algebra 2 grade. It was a C- and that, while not up to my usual grade standards, was more than good enough for a class that I should have flunked.
I’ll never know whether he even bothered to open my locked down puzzle-stack of math gibberish. Perhaps he did, and then had a good laugh at my desperate ingenuity. Or maybe he read my letter and felt pity for me.
Either way, he did me a solid and I’ve always appreciated it.
This legitimately made me laugh — reading this anecdote was a high point in already pretty great day! "puzzle-stack of math gibberish" is a phrase I particularly enjoyed letting roll around my brain a few times. Cheers!
I read Calvin and Hobbes as a 40-year old mother of two going through a divorce and back to school to become a teacher. When Watterson stopped the strip, I stopped reading any comics to this day. I gave the complete set to my first grandson (when he could read) who has all his favorite pages marked with many post-its. His brothers have continued to read the old set. His mother gave him a new complete set to take to college.
Calvin and Hobbes was such an important lens in helping me develop!and understand my way of looking at the world.
One of my personal favorites that I carried around a clipping of for years involved Calvin’s reflections after Moe beat him up for his lunch money yet again. A disheveled Calvin says “years from now when I’m rich and successful … and he’s in prison, I hope I’m not too mature to gloat.”
Gary- your descriptions took me right back to high school. I so empathize with the problem of falling behind to the point that “catching back up” is impossible. Especially with math or sciences where the sequence matters—later lessons require having mastered the earlier material. I missed an entire week of school in early November my junior year and it took me until late MAY working harder than I ever had to feel “caught up.”
But it was the homework packet that inspired me to write. I used to swear that our science teacher graded our lab reports by weighing them. The more pages of supplementary material we included, the better. She used to assign us questions to answer, writing the question out longhand before adding our answer. I recall on at least one occasion writing out a question and “answering” it by writing “I have no idea …”
One time I even added a page to the lab report for dissecting a clam by copying out a Shel Silverstein poem about clams. :)
Yeah, I have that too. My late wife gave it to me for one of our anniversaries. I never opened it, because I wanted to keep it perfect. Or something. She always thought it was weird.
A few years after she passed away, I finally opened it. No clue how to finish this reply.
I too was diagnosed ADHD when I was 38 years old. Your description of school as chaotic is very well stated. Now in old age I wish I had been more conservative in many of my life choices. My 4 marriages speak for themselves. Anyway, I appreciated your comments.
What a story, Gary! Thanks for sharing it here! I know exactly what it's like to be criticized for always being late. To fall behind. To be granted a little grace by a merciful teacher or two.
Wow, such a good article. I feel like it’s so hard to find new snippets of Calvin and Hobbes lore, but this feels like the only real contribution to the canon that I’ve seen in years.
I’ve always been on Watterson’s side, but I love the way you framed his stubbornness, and his relationship with the syndicate— almost like an out-of-touch but well-meaning parent conceding to the demands of a petulant child who they know is making some great points, regardless of the delivery. Honestly, a lot like the relationship between Calvin and his own parents.
Wow, that’s high praise. Thank you, Trey! I’m with you in being on Watterson’s side, but I had to be honest where I saw him engaging in a little self-serving self-mythologising. Anyway, I don’t blame him — it must have been a lonely fight.
Calvin and Hobbes is amazing. I teach elementary school and push my students to read Calvin and Hobbes. Partly because I like to make learning fun but I've noticed that the students who read Calvin and Hobbes always make huge gains in their reading comprehension -- probably because of all the advanced vocabulary. The fact that it's so hilarious keeps them engaged in reading. It was interesting to get a peek behind the scenes. I knew Watterson was a genius but I have even more respect for him now after reading your piece.
My wife was working at the SF Chronicle at that time so I had access to a lot of Sunday funnies.
I got of bunch of his last Calvin and Hobbes, had them mounted and framed for family Christmas presents. Never thought of selling them as that would have been heresy.
Very informative and interesting. I like Watterson's insistence on his art being art not cheap fluff toys stuffed and sewn together by child labor in China or Pakistan.
Yeah, this divide between the creators and the hucksters will always be with us.
I wrote a novel, managed to sell it to a NYC publishing house. When they book came out, they asked me to write another. I drew up an outline for two more. Got a contract and now had a trilogy. I wanted to move on. I had a different kind of novel I wanted to see published. They weren't interested. They wanted one just like the other one. We--me, the editor, and the agent--parted ways.
Thanks for reading, Paul. Good on you for sticking to your guns. For all of its faults, I love that Substack lets me circumvent the middlemen between me and my readers. It's just me, my words, and the reader on the other side.
I have a little towheaded boy who likes to get in trouble and often gets lost in his own world. He was Calvin for Halloween when he was six. Great read.
If there's one thing I read in the newspaper, it's Calvin and Hobbes. It somehow makes more sense than all the news around it and perhaps more bearable. As an Indian/South Asian, I have never felt it alien or belonging to another community and can readily relate to it. I guess I have Watterson's devotion to his art to thank for that.
Love to hear that. I grew up reading C&H in Canada, and now I live in the UK, Watterson isn’t as well known here but everyone I introduce to the strip falls in love with it.
Thanks for the great read. My love for Calvin and Hobbes is right there with everyone else’s so eloquently expressed in this thread so I won’t expound on that. I will say that it was great for my vocabulary as a youngster, and if you ever meet a 7-year-old who knows the word “peripatetic”, there’s a near 100% chance they read Calvin and Hobbes.
This is an excellent read, and I'm not here to take anything away from Watterson's status as an iconoclast-- merely add some color around the time period in which he produced C&H.
Part of the GenX self-identity in our formative 80s and 90s was not "selling out." This was before the age of ubiquitous product placements in tv and movies, and before artists' songs were licensed for use in commercials. Some will remember Neil Young winning Video of the Year in 1989 for "This Note's for You" (his pledge not to allow his music to be used in ads).
Piece by piece, big-name artists like The Beatles, Dylan, and Madonna broke the dam during these decades with brands like Nike and Pepsi, and by now we've long since left behind the world in which it was uncool to sell out.
Obviously, this article speaks to a different medium, and you addressed Watterson's contemporary (Jim Davis, Garfield), who *did* grab the brass ring. As I said, I only wished to add context around the time period for those too young to have lived through it.
You’re of course right that context matters, and thank you for laying some of it out. None of us, not even our greatest iconoclasts, are perpetual motion machines of self-invention. We all take from what’s around. It’s no less impressive to me that Watterson took his own values as seriously as he did, but it’s true that he was working in a culture that supported that ideal more perhaps than it does today. Thanks for reading, Stephen, and for responding!
Great essay. One of the joys of my childhood was Calvin & Hobbes. I remember the feeling of loss when Watterson stopped, as well as respect for knowing when he was finished. But the joy continues -- I gifted all my Calvin & Hobbes books to my children and now have the dual pleasure of seeing them disappear inside the books for days, and also of hearing Calvin & Hobbes references scattered through their conversations.
That strip meant so much to me, as an 80s kid, most of my vocabulary came from it. I do wish he’d see his fans as kindred spirits as opposed to strangers to keep out. We’d all be fascinated to hear what he has to say
Man, I'd love to get some retrospective thoughts from Watterson. Could still happen, who knows! The next best thing has been his commentaries on the work in books like "The 10th Anniversary Book" and "The Sunday Pages 1985-1995", worth checking out if you want that over-the-shoulder view of the artist at work.
Me, too.
After retiring from the service, I chose to revisit my childhood passion and went to art school.
Every single class began with a discussion of our inspirations, and Bill Watterson was the only name that was never left off my list - as much for his unwavering integrity as his incredible talent. I would love it if he were more willing to embrace his celebrity.
However, he has made it clear that he prefers his privacy. If I may be so bold as to speak for all of us as fans of his work, we owe him that.
oh I own and read it all lol
I wasn't really a child any longer when I first discovered "Calvin and Hobbes" (I was 19) but it transmogrified my life for 10 years.
In 2005 he took a series of fan questions: https://web.archive.org/web/20170405173424/http://www.andrewsmcmeel.com/books/comics-and-humor/calvinandhobbes/pw_watterson.html
Good catch!
It did to me, as well. There was a time in junior high where I could literally name the page numbers of the books the strips were on. Both my kids now love them nearly as much as I do. It is truly magical.
There's no comic strip now that's even within an order of magnitude of how big Calvin and Hobbes was by the end, is there? I even remember a national news anchor reading out the final strip on air. Let's go exploring.
I cut the last episode strip out of the paper and still have it. I bet I'm not the only one.
Me as well! Still pinned to a board in my childhood bedroom!
I had one of the Calvinball strips myself.
I feel like the end of Bloom County was similar.
The thematic return of whitewash at the end was simply masterful.
That was the kind of thing you get nerdy-excited about when you write it, then worry no one will spot it, so thank you!
"Everyone LOVES a bookend!"
Yep. I'm a sucker for it.
Oh we spotted it ♥️ Nicely done
I loved this too! A beautiful connection back to the beginning
In mid-1990, I was 16 years old. In our small town, I was an extremely rare breed of high schooler: nerdy, yet athletic, a glasses-wearing omnivorous bookworm, who loved watching sports/TV/movies almost as much as I liked reading books. Plus, my name is Gary which, even back then, wasn’t very common. I’m not sure if all of that brought me up to “unicorn” status, but it had to be close.
I was nearing the end of an epic (for me) sophomore slump and was pretty sure that I was going to fail Algebra 2. The worst part of the situation is that it wasn’t my fault. My evil stepmother (a title that she had worked hard to earn) drove us to school and we always got to my school late.
Algebra 2 was my first class (because what sleepy teenager doesn’t want to focus on math between 8-9 AM?) and my teacher made a snarky comment every day that I was late. Which was every day. At first, I would try to catch up on the day’s lesson, but I soon realized that I was too far behind and was never going to catch up. Instead of failing for an hour, I’d get to my desk, put my head down, and read my latest book until class ended.
It was during May of this bad funk era that I read the first of a series of Calvin and Hobbes strips that featured our favorite boy/tiger duo playing “Calvinball” AKA the world’s least organized sport.
I remember a more classically-nerdy classmate and I talking excitedly about this new game’s total awesomeness and how much we wanted to play it. His name was Brian Everding. Which is weird, because the next street over from my house is called Everding. It’s probably just a coincidence…
The idea of playing a sport where the only permanent rule “is that you can’t play it the same way twice” instantly captivated me. It was such a brilliantly executed and hilarious idea to me (I LOVED the songs), but the sheer chaos of it also made sense to me on a much deeper level than I realized. It resonated.
Two years ago, I finally found out why that class (and most things in my life involving executive decision making and/or organization from about the 6th grade until now) was so difficult. It only took them (whomever “they” are) 49 years to finally clinically diagnose me with ADHD. It explained so many things about much of my life to me, not the least of which was my love for Calvin and Hobbes in general, and the utter chaos of Calvinball in particular.
My brain works exactly like a never-ending Calvinball game: All chaos, all the time. As you may have guessed, my life has been quite chaotic, as well. It hasn’t always been fun, but it’s certainly been interesting.
Whether or not he wants to talk about Calvin and Hobbes (or even acknowledge that it exists) means very little to me. If I could say one thing to him, it would be this:
“Thank you, Mr. Watterson, for all of the joy your creation has brought me over the years.”
Gary, thank you so much for this comment. This was quite a read! And man, it really encourages me to up my comment-on-a-post game! It means absolutely everything that you took the time to read my work and then to engage with it as you did.
So, I have to ask — did you end up flunking Algebra 2??
Flash-memoir.🤓
For our homework in that class, we were given the solutions and had to show the correct work to come up with said solutions on our papers. By this point, I hadn’t turned in months worth of homework. Our math teacher gave everyone who had fallen behind, a last-day-of-school deadline to turn in all remaining late homework.
So, I waited.
On the last day of the school year, I took the first 7 or 8 homework pages (I believe it was one page per week) that I hadn’t turned in and dummied up some mathematical-looking equations all over them — along with a heaping helping of general scribbles, plus random numbers & letters to fill in all of the blank spots.
Then, I put them in order on top of a bunch of blank homework pages. On the last page, I wrote something like this (I don’t recall my exact wording):
“Mr. Spinas,
I’m sorry that I didn’t do or turn in my homework. I fell too far behind early in the year and didn’t understand how to do the equations. I hope that you won’t fail me.
Thank You,
Gary Davis”
Satisfied that it sounded pitiful, without outright begging him not to flunk me, I took the stack of “homework” over to the industrial-strength stapler. In a flash of inspiration, I decided that it couldn’t hurt to bank on him not wanting to deal with a problem on the last day of school. I took the stack and stapled it twice, per corner, on all four corners of the stack. Then, I put a couple of staples right in the center of the stack, for good measure.
When I got my report card, I tore it open and scanned down for the Algebra 2 grade. It was a C- and that, while not up to my usual grade standards, was more than good enough for a class that I should have flunked.
I’ll never know whether he even bothered to open my locked down puzzle-stack of math gibberish. Perhaps he did, and then had a good laugh at my desperate ingenuity. Or maybe he read my letter and felt pity for me.
Either way, he did me a solid and I’ve always appreciated it.
This legitimately made me laugh — reading this anecdote was a high point in already pretty great day! "puzzle-stack of math gibberish" is a phrase I particularly enjoyed letting roll around my brain a few times. Cheers!
Always happy to provide a funny anecdote from my life. The fact that it was a high point of someone’s day? That only sweetens the deal.
I read Calvin and Hobbes as a 40-year old mother of two going through a divorce and back to school to become a teacher. When Watterson stopped the strip, I stopped reading any comics to this day. I gave the complete set to my first grandson (when he could read) who has all his favorite pages marked with many post-its. His brothers have continued to read the old set. His mother gave him a new complete set to take to college.
You made me laugh too! And you left us with a Watterson answer....
I'll have to dig into the archive.
I was given the Complete Calvin and Hobbes, a two volume hardbound set in a sleeve with every strip.
It sits on the shelf next to the Complete Far Side.
I would be a different person without them.
Some people have Kant and Kierkgaard.
I've got Calvin & Hobbes and Gary.
So true about the import of both strips!
Calvin and Hobbes was such an important lens in helping me develop!and understand my way of looking at the world.
One of my personal favorites that I carried around a clipping of for years involved Calvin’s reflections after Moe beat him up for his lunch money yet again. A disheveled Calvin says “years from now when I’m rich and successful … and he’s in prison, I hope I’m not too mature to gloat.”
Gary- your descriptions took me right back to high school. I so empathize with the problem of falling behind to the point that “catching back up” is impossible. Especially with math or sciences where the sequence matters—later lessons require having mastered the earlier material. I missed an entire week of school in early November my junior year and it took me until late MAY working harder than I ever had to feel “caught up.”
But it was the homework packet that inspired me to write. I used to swear that our science teacher graded our lab reports by weighing them. The more pages of supplementary material we included, the better. She used to assign us questions to answer, writing the question out longhand before adding our answer. I recall on at least one occasion writing out a question and “answering” it by writing “I have no idea …”
One time I even added a page to the lab report for dissecting a clam by copying out a Shel Silverstein poem about clams. :)
Haha! Thanks.
Yeah, I have that too. My late wife gave it to me for one of our anniversaries. I never opened it, because I wanted to keep it perfect. Or something. She always thought it was weird.
A few years after she passed away, I finally opened it. No clue how to finish this reply.
incredible comment. thank you so much for sharing
Thank you. It was my pleasure.
I too was diagnosed ADHD when I was 38 years old. Your description of school as chaotic is very well stated. Now in old age I wish I had been more conservative in many of my life choices. My 4 marriages speak for themselves. Anyway, I appreciated your comments.
What a story, Gary! Thanks for sharing it here! I know exactly what it's like to be criticized for always being late. To fall behind. To be granted a little grace by a merciful teacher or two.
To escape into Calvin and Hobbes' world.
To be diagnosed with ADHD late in life.
🫂
Wow, such a good article. I feel like it’s so hard to find new snippets of Calvin and Hobbes lore, but this feels like the only real contribution to the canon that I’ve seen in years.
I’ve always been on Watterson’s side, but I love the way you framed his stubbornness, and his relationship with the syndicate— almost like an out-of-touch but well-meaning parent conceding to the demands of a petulant child who they know is making some great points, regardless of the delivery. Honestly, a lot like the relationship between Calvin and his own parents.
Wow, that’s high praise. Thank you, Trey! I’m with you in being on Watterson’s side, but I had to be honest where I saw him engaging in a little self-serving self-mythologising. Anyway, I don’t blame him — it must have been a lonely fight.
Totally! He’s earned the right to embellish himself a little.
Calvin and Hobbes is amazing. I teach elementary school and push my students to read Calvin and Hobbes. Partly because I like to make learning fun but I've noticed that the students who read Calvin and Hobbes always make huge gains in their reading comprehension -- probably because of all the advanced vocabulary. The fact that it's so hilarious keeps them engaged in reading. It was interesting to get a peek behind the scenes. I knew Watterson was a genius but I have even more respect for him now after reading your piece.
My wife was working at the SF Chronicle at that time so I had access to a lot of Sunday funnies.
I got of bunch of his last Calvin and Hobbes, had them mounted and framed for family Christmas presents. Never thought of selling them as that would have been heresy.
That's a hell of a gift! And a better way to honour the man's work than just selling them on. Thanks for reading.
Very informative and interesting. I like Watterson's insistence on his art being art not cheap fluff toys stuffed and sewn together by child labor in China or Pakistan.
Yeah, this divide between the creators and the hucksters will always be with us.
I wrote a novel, managed to sell it to a NYC publishing house. When they book came out, they asked me to write another. I drew up an outline for two more. Got a contract and now had a trilogy. I wanted to move on. I had a different kind of novel I wanted to see published. They weren't interested. They wanted one just like the other one. We--me, the editor, and the agent--parted ways.
I've never regretted it.
Thanks for reading, Paul. Good on you for sticking to your guns. For all of its faults, I love that Substack lets me circumvent the middlemen between me and my readers. It's just me, my words, and the reader on the other side.
I have a little towheaded boy who likes to get in trouble and often gets lost in his own world. He was Calvin for Halloween when he was six. Great read.
Love that kids are still making friends with Calvin and Hobbes. A sure sign of good parenting, too!
Excellent post. Fascinating to see how much similarity there is between the character and the creator. Both are real non conformists.
Most people's approach to non conformity was captured in Lenny Bruce's line "I'm just like everybody else. I want to be a non-conformist, too."
They might wear the right clothes and get the right tattoos and piercings to be a non conformist but 99 percent are herd animals.
But somewhere deep within us is the desire to be a Calvin.
i feel this. and i loved this post too
that's a great line by lenny bruce. never heard it but it totally captures how a way of being can become an aesthetic
Apparently it was Schrödinge’s tiger
If there's one thing I read in the newspaper, it's Calvin and Hobbes. It somehow makes more sense than all the news around it and perhaps more bearable. As an Indian/South Asian, I have never felt it alien or belonging to another community and can readily relate to it. I guess I have Watterson's devotion to his art to thank for that.
Love to hear that. I grew up reading C&H in Canada, and now I live in the UK, Watterson isn’t as well known here but everyone I introduce to the strip falls in love with it.
Thanks for the great read. My love for Calvin and Hobbes is right there with everyone else’s so eloquently expressed in this thread so I won’t expound on that. I will say that it was great for my vocabulary as a youngster, and if you ever meet a 7-year-old who knows the word “peripatetic”, there’s a near 100% chance they read Calvin and Hobbes.
This is an excellent read, and I'm not here to take anything away from Watterson's status as an iconoclast-- merely add some color around the time period in which he produced C&H.
Part of the GenX self-identity in our formative 80s and 90s was not "selling out." This was before the age of ubiquitous product placements in tv and movies, and before artists' songs were licensed for use in commercials. Some will remember Neil Young winning Video of the Year in 1989 for "This Note's for You" (his pledge not to allow his music to be used in ads).
Piece by piece, big-name artists like The Beatles, Dylan, and Madonna broke the dam during these decades with brands like Nike and Pepsi, and by now we've long since left behind the world in which it was uncool to sell out.
Obviously, this article speaks to a different medium, and you addressed Watterson's contemporary (Jim Davis, Garfield), who *did* grab the brass ring. As I said, I only wished to add context around the time period for those too young to have lived through it.
/ Your mileage may vary.
You’re of course right that context matters, and thank you for laying some of it out. None of us, not even our greatest iconoclasts, are perpetual motion machines of self-invention. We all take from what’s around. It’s no less impressive to me that Watterson took his own values as seriously as he did, but it’s true that he was working in a culture that supported that ideal more perhaps than it does today. Thanks for reading, Stephen, and for responding!
Not to mention The Who, whose song could now be renamed as "Hope I die before I get old and sell my soul to American Express"...
Then you've missed the "Who knew" ad for walmart, prominently featuring the "Who are you" who song. who knew, who knew? sick
I'm English. We don't have Walmart. 🙂
However you did produce Roger and Pete. Fortunately for us.
Mere words cannot describe how much I love Calvin and Hobbes. It's like nothing else. 💖
Great essay. One of the joys of my childhood was Calvin & Hobbes. I remember the feeling of loss when Watterson stopped, as well as respect for knowing when he was finished. But the joy continues -- I gifted all my Calvin & Hobbes books to my children and now have the dual pleasure of seeing them disappear inside the books for days, and also of hearing Calvin & Hobbes references scattered through their conversations.