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
The whole pleasure for me is having the opportunity to do a comic strip for a living, and now that I've finally got that I'm not going to give it away. . . . Any time somebody else has their hand in the ink it's changing the product, and I enjoy the responsibility for this product. I'm willing to take the blame if the strip goes down the drain, and I want the credit if it succeeds. So long as it has my name on it, I want it to be mine.
(W)hen I stopped understanding math and science, my choice was made.
The timber wolves will be our friends.We'll stay up late and howl,At the moon, till nighttime ends,Before going on the prowl.
I used to make original snowmen, but it was time consuming, hard work. So I said, heck, this is crazy! Now I crank out crude imitations of what's already popular! It takes no time or thought, and most people don't care about the difference, anyway! And what good is originality if you can't crank it out?
Enemy fighters at two o'clock!Roger. What should I do until then?
Enemy fighters at two o'clock! Roger. What should I do until then?
There's no problem so awful that you can't add some guilt to it and make it even worse!
There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want.
I was not prepared for the resulting attention. Besides disliking the diminishment of privacy and the inhibiting quality of feeling watched, I valued my anonymous, boring life. In fact, I didn't see how I could write honestly without it. A year later, I moved out west, got an unlisted phone number, stopped giving interviews, and tried to fly as low under the radar as possible. Of course, some reporters took this as a personal challenge to intrude, but in general, my quiet life let me concentrate on my work.
I'm sick of everybody telling me what to do.
To make a business decision, you don't need much philosophy; all you need is greed, and maybe a little knowledge of how the game works.
To make a bad day worse, spend it wishing for the impossible.
True, comics are a popular art, and yes, I believe their primary obligation is to entertain, but comics can go beyond that, and when they do, they move from silliness to significance.
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.