Bill Watterson
Bill Watterson
William Boyd "Bill" Watterson IIis an American cartoonist and the author of the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, which was syndicated from 1985 to 1995. Watterson stopped drawing Calvin and Hobbes at the end of 1995 with a short statement to newspaper editors and his readers that he felt he had achieved all he could in the medium. Watterson is known for his negative views on licensing and comic syndication and his move back into private life after he stopped...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCartoonist
Date of Birth5 July 1958
CountryUnited States of America
I didn't want 'Calvin and Hobbes' to coast into halfhearted repetition, as so many long-running strips do. I was ready to pursue different artistic challenges, work at a less frantic pace ... and start restoring some balance to my life.
If cartoonists would look at this more as an art than as a part time job or a get-rich-quick scheme, I think comics overall would be better. I think there's a tremendous potential to be tapped.
Instead of asking what's wrong with rampant consumerism, we ought to be asking, 'What justifies it?' Popular art does not have to pander to the lowest level of intelligence and taste.
People always make the mistake of thinking art is created for them. But really, art is a private language for sophisticates to congratulate themselves on their superiority to the rest of the world. As my artist’s statement explains, my work is utterly incomprehensible and is therefore full of deep significance.
It's not the medium, but the quality of perception and expression, that determines the significance of art.
I like my smock. You can tell the quality of the artist by the quality of his smock. Actually, I just like to say smock. Smock smock smock smock smock smock.
Every artist learns through imitation, but I rather doubt the aim of these things is artistic development. I assume they're either homages or satiric riffs, and are not intended to be taken too seriously as works in their own right. Otherwise I should be talking to a copyright lawyer.
Art has to keep moving and discovering to stay alive.
If you give a little credit to the concept of the artist, I think you ought to indulge excesses a bit, because that reflects the personality of the writer. Now if a joke is in bad taste or it's not funny, okay, that's awhole different thing, but how you craft a joke is really what the writer's job is, and I don't think that technique should be subject to any editorial constraints.
In the right hands, a comic strip attains a beauty and elegance that, really, I would put against any other art.
It's gratifying to hear that from people who care about comic art. I never know what to make of it when someone writes to say, "Calvin and Hobbes is the best strip in the paper. I like it even more than Nancy."
Saturday morning cartoons do that now, where they develop the toy and then draw the cartoon around it, and the result is the cartoon is a commercial for the toy and the toy is a commercial for the cartoon. The same thing's happening now in comic strips; it's just another way to get the competitive edge. You saturate all the different markets and allow each other to advertise the other, and it's the best of all possible worlds. You can see the financial incentive to work that way. I just think it's to the detriment of integrity in comic strip art.
When I get to the drawing, I really enjoy taking a big chunk of time and working on the drawing and nothing else. That allows me to make sure that I'm really challenging the art, making each picture as interesting as I can.
(W)hen I stopped understanding math and science, my choice was made.