I regret my recent inconsistencies with the “Sunday Comics” feature, which were for a long time the one consistent feature of this blog at all. I think what I need to do is inject a little change into it, as has been evident in all the recent sort of “special” Sunday Comicses that have occurred, to keep things interesting both for myself as the writer and for you as the readers. Henceforth, “Sunday Comics” on OverReactor will no longer simply be “spotlightings” of great examples of comicdom. It will be, more broadly, a weekly post on just about anything so long as it deals with comics. The “spotlightings” of the sort that have made up the last twenty-something entries will still provide the bulk of the content, I’m sure, but this way I can provide myself with more flexibility while still working in the same basic theme. For this particular one, I’d like to revisit the classic comic strip Calvin and Hobbes and yap about that a bit in a sort of impromptu, brief, meandering essay. 
Comic strips have long been a part of me, and were a large contributor to my eventual, present-day love of the comics form in general. They’ve been there for such a long time in my memory, and are still even to my adult mind one of the best things about newspapers. Historically, they are the direct parents of the comic book, at least in
But that lack of change also breeds familiarity, which breeds comfort and habit. I enthusiastically read the comics as a kid and though I no longer read them every morning, I still feel like some small extra bonus has been added to my morning routine when I do stop to explore these little four-panel adventures over my cereal. For a good stretch of time, roughly from fourth grade to about tenth, I thought I myself might want to eventually join the comic strip industry. That interest eventually morphed and blossomed into my present-day desire to do a few comic book/graphic novel-format projects. Whether they’re books or strips, I still love comics.
At the forefront of my initial love of comics as a kid was Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes. Even then I could just tell there was something different about it, something that made it special. The writing appealed to what had to then be the seed of the language-geek side of me, and I know I was using some of Calvin’s words before I actually knew what they all meant (don’t nobody tell you comics ain’t no good for the vocabulary). I’ve been rereading all my old collections of the strip lately, and looking back on it with a now-adult perspective, it’s even better than ever.
Now that I can fully comprehend the dialogue, its wit becomes that much more clear, and as I’ve recently begun at last to make a greater return to practicing my drawing skills, I’ve also taken note of Watterson’s craftsmanship in his illustration—his brush-and-pen linework had a unique style even then and would only stand out more as Photoshop becomes a prominent comics ingredient. Some of his backgrounds and scenery pieces, especially in outdoor scenes, are downright pretty, and are done with few lines to boot. His Sunday strips were all sure to take advantage of the larger size and number of panels with the art and/or story. If Bill Watterson made a return to comicking I think it’d be interesting to see him try a longer work in a non-serialized format. He also preferred the humor in the writing to be character-based rather than joke-based, something I’ve grown to have a great appreciation of, in large part due to this comic strip’s reliance on it. Character-driven humor is much harder to write than situational humor, but it’s almost always better for it. Even better, he managed to be distinctly satirical most of the time while avoiding specific politics or social issues, thus keeping it widely accessible and to an extent, timeless.
All the more tragic, then, when the strip ended at the peak of a successful ten-year run. I can only vaguely remember its cancellation. These days I can only look at the books and sort of note that this used to be in a newspaper, newspapers I read as a kid. But later, upon doing more reading about Mr. Watterson, I understood why he did it, though it was a reason odd to the comic strip industry in particular—ideas of artistic integrity. Though he recognized comic strips' commercial art origins (it’s clear from reading things he’s written that the man knows his comics history), he grew to view Calvin and Hobbes as more of an art project. The more his syndicate pressured him to license the strip due to its immense popularity, the less he liked the idea of it, and he fought a long, long fight against merchandising that he eventually figured he could not win. At this realization, he wrote a goodbye/thank-you letter to the folks in charge. Watterson felt merchandise, while potentially worth millions with the readership he had, would have compromised the “spirit” of his strip.
I must admit that Bill Watterson and I differ slightly on this point—I would not be against some minor merchandising of any of my own creations (it would be hard to resist designing a t-shirt or two), though I am still staunchly opposed to the overmerchandising suffered by many popular cartoons: the gross excesses of the likes of Garfield and Spongebob now make me faintly ill with the sights of their faces stamped on every product imaginable, and even Charles Schulz’s classic comics pillar Peanuts loses some of its heartwarming qualities when one is confronted by a wall of greeting cards. I think the subtlety here lies in the difference between products as a means of generating support for and awareness of its parent work, and works that become products themselves. It is knowing when to say no. However, I don’t admire Watterson’s own stance on marketing any less in the light of my own perspective. I fully respect his wishes to have Calvin and Hobbes remain just a comic strip, especially given that it in fact wasn’t “just a comic strip.”
Bill Watterson made legitimate art out of a form long maligned and treated with cynicism by even its own creators. Looking back at the strips now, as I have recently done, I can see that art so clearly. He carefully chose his colors and palettes, and the characters’ voices are all made to sound unique. In its absence, it has left many an echo on that brightly-coloured newspaper page—from the clearly-influenced art style and witticisms of Frazz to the joy of character interplay utilized in
Holden Out.
