Bill Watterson’s Return to Comics

Stephan Pastis:

So I emailed him the strip and thanked him for all his great work and the influence he’d had on me. And never expected to get a reply.

And what do you know, he wrote back.

Let me tell you. Just getting an email from Bill Watterson is one of the most mind-blowing, surreal experiences I have ever had. Bill Watterson really exists? And he sends email? And he’s communicating with me?

But he was. And he had a great sense of humor about the strip I had done, and was very funny, and oh yeah….

…He had a comic strip idea he wanted to run by me.

Now if you had asked me the odds of Bill Watterson ever saying that line to me, I’d say it had about the same likelihood as Jimi Hendrix telling me he had a new guitar riff. And yes, I’m aware Hendrix is dead.

So I wrote back to Bill.

“Dear Bill,

I will do whatever you want, including setting my hair on fire.”

So he wrote back and explained his idea.

He said he knew that in my strip, I frequently make fun of my own art skills. And that he thought it would be funny to have me get hit on the head or something and suddenly be able to draw. Then he’d step in and draw my comic strip for a few days.

That’s right.

The cartoonist who last drew Calvin and Hobbes riding their sled into history would return to the comics page.

To draw Pearls Before Swine.

If you’re a Calvin and Hobbes fan, you must, must, must visit the link to see the three strips Watterson drew. The final panel of the second strip is CLASSIC (when do I ever use all caps?) C&H construction. My favorite comic strip after C&H was Zits (I was roughly the same age as the protagonist, Jeremy, at the time) and I used to fantasize that “Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman” was actually Bill Watterson publishing under a pseudonym (because after all, I used to exclaim, Jeremy is exactly the age Calvin would be at this point in history!) I wouldn’t be surprised to find that out that most C&H fans came up with some kind of theory along these lines—any way to keep Watterson’s work alive.

But this? This is way better.

/via John Siracusa

'Because it affords him the time to pursue other interests and activities.'

Gavin Aung Than, writing and illustrating on his site Zen Pencils:

Bill Watterson is the artist and creator of (in my humble opinion) the greatest comic strip of all time, Calvin and Hobbes. I was a bit too young to appreciate it while it was originally published from 1985-1995, but I started devouring the book collections soon after. I think my brother had a few of the treasury collections and I must have read those dozens of times. I was hooked, and I remember copying Watterson’s drawings relentlessly as a kid (Calvin’s hair was always the hardest to get right).

The quote used in the comic is taken from a graduation speech Watterson gave at his alma mater, Kenyon College, in 1990. Brain Pickings has a nice article about it. The comic is basically the story of my life, except I’m a stay-at-home-dad to two dogs. My ex-boss even asked me if I wanted to return to my old job.

This is another one of those cultural products that came along at exactly the right time in my life. I was familiar with the speech, but the story and illustration provided by Gavin had me weeping. You'll never forget reading this cartoon, I promise.