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Bill Watterson (briefly) Returns To Comics
New submitter amosh writes: 'Bill Watterson was the author of the immensely popular "Calvin and Hobbes" comic strip in the 80s and 90s, until he retired and removed himself entirely from the public eye. Since his retirement in 1995, he has become a recluse, and has not drawn a published daily comic strip — until now. This week, Watterson came out of exile to draw the 2nd panel of three of Stephan Pastis' "Pearls Before Swine" strips. Watterson has lost none of his style or talent, and a fourth strip — drawn by Pastis alone and published today, June 7 — is a lovely homage to Watterson's ending of Calvin and Hobbes. The Washington Post has the story of how it all happened.'
His art sucks. I mean "Libby" drawing in a style reminiscent of "Bill Watterson?" It couldn't actually be that loser Pastis. It had to be the real Bill Watterston.
And I must have known it was Watterson the whole time, because i just said so on the internet.
With online distribution, he could draw whatever he wanted without as many limits, and while limitations do breed creativity, they can also put you in a box.
But I suspect he's too bitter to try.
Or is he?
To stop cartooning. Beatle Baily, Hagar the Horrible, Garfield and yes... I'll even go far as Dilbert (I'm sure blasphemy to geeks around here) are worn out strips that are recycling the same dumb gags and phone-it-in art over and over. I actually respect Waterson for quitting in his prime.
AccountKiller
I don't. Not that I rate those other artists, but because - like the Simpsons post series 7 - he'd have done some great, great work. I don't think less of someone because they peaked and went downhill; it detracts nothing from the best stuff.
First Steve Perry ( http://www.people.com/article/steve-perry-sings-journey-eels-st-paul ) comes out of the shadows, and now Bill Watterson. I'm glad these folks remain out of the spotlight, since that's where they want to be. But it's always exciting when they pop out and treat us all to something new now and then.
To stop cartooning. Beatle Baily, Hagar the Horrible, Garfield and yes... I'll even go far as Dilbert (I'm sure blasphemy to geeks around here) are worn out strips that are recycling the same dumb gags and phone-it-in art over and over. I actually respect Waterson for quitting in his prime.
Sadly I have to agree. All the strips that have been around for a while are on auto-pilot, coasting along on their fame. The creators are putting zero effort into them.
Are you sure he's a recluse? You can be out of the public eye and not be a recluse.
Its hard to find a consistently funny comic strip. I'm stuck with a few on-line ones. "The Duplex" is the only classic style strip that makes me really chuckle. "Randolph Itch" has some gems between the misses. I've found nothing else that suits me.
So tired of the "cute kid" said something funny strips.
For something really different... check out Santa vs. Dracula.
Not that I don't love Bill, but this isn't his first "return" to drawing. I can't call drawing the 2nd panel of some comic strip a "return". He recently did this movie poster....
http://geekologie.com/2014/02/bill-wattersons-first-comic-since-retiri.php
Don't forget that Peanuts isn't even new strips of the same old same ol'. They are printing comics that were drawn 40 years ago.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
http://stephanpastis.wordpress...
Look how many papers are giving space to eternal Peanuts reruns. They're not even selected from the whole opus; I don't know if that's because Schulz didn't want older strips rerun or the syndicate doesn't want to introduce discontinuity by printing strips from when the characters looked different (Snoopy walking on all fours and not suffering macrocephaly, for instance.)
Not to mention "Law & Order," they've done way too many spin-offs and the whole thing is just played out. Watterson should have quit that, too, and moved to selling robot insurance full time.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
He shuns all media attention for interviews, for somebody as well known as he is, that qualifies as reclusive. For most people not being in the public eye would just be normal, but for somebody as well known as he is, that's being reclusive. It's really the shunning of the interest that makes him a recluse.
I'll let you think long and hard what the difference might be between a single cartoonist and the team behind the Simpsons
Mort Walker is 90 and his strips are now handled by his kids. Dik Browne is in the same boat -- or should I say, coffin. Jim Davis no longer writes or illustrates Garfield. Dilbert might have ghost cartoonists, too (Scott Adams developed some hand problems a while back, IIRC)
Get Fuzzy! Enough said.
Very often, people confuse simple with simplistic. The nuance is lost on most. - Clement Mok
I'd submit that those strips were never as thoughtful or funny as Calvin and Hobbes. When I was a kid, I loved Garfield, Dilbert, and Calvin and Hobbes. I bought their books and read them a lot. Why? Well, kids have poor tastes, which is why they think cut up hot dogs are awesome every day for dinner for years on end. I still find myself gorging on webcomic archives even if I don't find them that entertaining. I read through most of "Ctrl alt del"'s archive before getting sick of it, and I think of Ctrl alt del as the least funny, least insightful comic (web or not) that I've ever run across.
So I think I have authority on the subject of comic strip quality. I'm embarrassed to admit that even on slashdot. I mean, at least comic BOOKS would be semi respectable here.
Anyway, Garfield, dilbert, Ctrl alt del, calvin and hobbes, penny arcade, far side... it seems to me that they had a short period where they were still evolving, but after that, they were pretty stable. I get the sense that comics only go downhill after the artists stop caring.
I don't think Bill Watterson would have run out of fresh ideas to share with the world. I think he was being 100% honest when he said he lacked the passion to do it anymore. I think it's easier for young people to pour time, energy, and passion into things. And I don't think that Watterson could have simply phoned it in. I think Calvin and Hobbes would have been enjoyable up to now, assuming Watterson hadn't shot himself or died of exhaustion.
I am not going to complain when someone wants to make a reasonable honest living. Some people like to work, and some people have talent but don't like to do the day to day grind. It is a unique type of job to have to produce a few hundred different creative products a year. Berke Brethed is another one who had a lot of talent but did not like having to fit everything into a commercial format. So he tried to break the format by doing an awesome Sunday only strip, but that did not last long. But when you have the lure of money and people who do not have to work harder than they want, or where the work can be done in committee, the carton is not going to end. The Simpon's for instance could have been cancelled a few years ago, but the actors realized they could be replaced, and I guess having work at half the rate of sitcom actors was better than having no work at all. The cost of actors is what really killed Seinfeld and Friends. But Watterson could have subcontracted out the comic, and he did not, and for that he gets a lot of credit. Of course not every comic is controlled by the writer/artists.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
In the 80s, I preferred Gary Larson anyways.
Sadly I have to agree. All the strips that have been around for a while are on auto-pilot, coasting along on their fame. The creators are putting zero effort into them.
I'm not sure if it's just recycling gags, or if it's just that the gags were mind-blowingly awesome in the time and culture of their prime, but have since faded right along with the times and culture in which they were spawned.
Take Dilbert for example. When it came out (in the 1990s, y'all), it was a badass tour-de-force that ripped right into the buzzword bullshit culture that corporate America was at the time. As long as that culture was prevalent**, the overall meme was fully relevant, and it resonated deeply with the cubicle-dwelling audience. Fast forward to today, where much of that has faded - and with it, the whole basis of humor behind Dilbert has sort of faded with it.
Beetle Bailey (mentioned way earlier) is similar - it's based on frickin' army humor from what - maybe WWII? When it rocked the funny pages, most of the audience was either in the military or a veteran thereof, so the gags and storylines instantly resonated. All the gags and storylines in Bloom County resonated with the Reagan era, and would be way non-relevant today.
** in many cases it still is relevant today, but really - not nearly as much as it was back then, when every fiscal quarter brought the employees a new mandatory box that we were forced by policy to think outside of.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
The Simpon's for instance could have been cancelled a few years ago, but the actors realized they could be replaced, and I guess having work at half the rate of sitcom actors was better than having no work at all.
could have? More like should have. That poor shark probably has Matt Groening's footprints all over its back in multiple paths by now...
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
What magicaI nostalgia! Watterson's work has aged really well. I respect his choice to walk away and know he would never read this, but he could save the newspaper industry with the return of new C&H dailys.
for me I was done with L&A when what's his name left the show then passed away. You know, the guy? and then the DA guy left, and I was double done. then the captain woman left? forgettaboutit. L&A SVU is still enjoyable. ise T is awesome! but the other guy left so that takes a lot of fun away. the other guy is like an awesome bruce willis. its a shame eh never did action movies.
how come nobody has mentioned xkcd yet? it seems very relevant to this conversation.
I looked at the alligators and the zebra and they looked suspicious (there is a lot of joy in how the right gator is holding his hands). In the next days panel, the way the mouse holds his hand (sure looks like Calvin!), and the surprised look of the mouse in the next panel with both feet in the air --that's a Hobbes jump! And Calvin's "spaceman spiff" spaceships! The last panel with the waaayyy too happy, wayyy too giggly girls... its all too much fun. These are too visually appealing! I haven't been a big pearls fan (the art *is* sometimes kludgy), but these panes are GOLD! That Stephan wrote the dialogue and Bill had to make the panels fit it is so much like improv. (I remember an improv. comedy group trying to be funny with 3 words from the audience: and people shouted "Bugs Bunny, Nuclear Bombs, and Sex".... and they pulled it off). Bill seems to have been as disheartened by shrinking board space just like Berkeley. And I miss both of those strips like long lost old friends (and I know I'm not alone). Looking at these strips brings both smiles and melancholy, like remembering favorite relatives who have passed. Their memory brings joy, and their absence sadness.
Just because you only find depreciated women and choking a child the height of humor doesn't mean the rest of us don't enjoy the subtle humor and story change that the Simpsons have grown up to become.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
xkcd has a lot of great moments but this week is not one of them:
xkcd.com/1378/
Even Garfield would be ashamed. (They'd still do it, but they'd know deep down it was bad.)
Wow, I never knew there was an anti-Calvin and Hobbes troll possible but you have found it!
Genuinely, I am impressed. You should use this one in other places.
Probably an effect of the decline of newspapers - comic strips were often syndicated and a chunk of payment. Because newspapers are in trouble (which I find sad - there's something to be said of glancing at the news you didn't bother caring about to at least broaden one's horizone), they're cutting their comics. And reduced circulations mean lower payments as well.
It won't surprise me that these artists aren't making as much as they once were, and are having to cut back, which mean that they're often working second jobs, which means less time to spend on the comic.
Sure, many of these comics are online, but they don't really pay all that much online. Plus the relative difficulty in getting a comic page's worth of comics (because they've all got different syndicators) and websites means well, visits are few. At least, without paying - many will email you the comics if you pay for the service.
Yet XKCD keeps producing great moments, which is why I keep reading it. And the wordplay and the naivety in the 1378 was at least smile worthy. (Personally I didn't enjoy the previous one.)
It is what it is.
Gary Trudeau kept Doonesbury going daily until last year. Now it's only weekly, but still great, and has been consistently great since the seventies. He only dropped the frequency to give time for his new main job writing for Alpha House.
Occassionaly I look at 90s Dilbert cartoons - those are really funny, these days, a constant stream of "meh"...
IMHO, Matt Groening's real genius can be seen in Life in Hell sketches. The Simpsons is a pale mismash of typical American values compared to Life in Hell.
Erm, "he should have stopped before doing those" because he never did those?
They are completely unauthorized drawings and not done by him.
That's what I read in one of the blogs (and it was funny enough to reprint).. I looked at the strips and smiled. I looked at old C&H strips, and (especially some of the snowmen) I laughed my face off. I looked at the panel "Watterson believes cartoon artwork should be taken seriously." and I busted a gut. I laughed out loud for 5 minutes. I miss the old strip. Its awful that some idiot did a knockoff of Calvin peeing, and then sold it to some guy driving a truck. Its nice to see that Bill has returned --if ever so briefly-- from the witness protection program.
Which is funny, because "army" culture shouldn't mean anything to him but I guess everything old is new to somebody.
What, no link to the actual panels?
still relevant
-works at company that makes the boxes
Because the new artists are ditching poorly-inked shredded forest syndication in favor of mediums where they have real control. For instance web and self-published books. (the latter really needs the former, I suspect, in order to get enough exposure to be viable, though.)
Interestingly, there is a lot more specialization. For example, I suspect that a lot of people won't find Dr McNinja amusing, but those who do will not be able to avoid archive binging. There is something for everyone, and everyone's something isn't necessarily the same thing. The flavors are more intense.
If you want to read good daily comics again, just find some ten lists and pick out a few, then plug them into your favorite rss reader.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I miss Brethead as well.
If there was ever a decade that needed Watterson's whim and Brethead's grit, it is this one.
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
The reason Dilbert isn't funny any more is because meaningless buzzwords, silver-plated bullets and unskilled engineers who got their job through associated bullshittery are now the norm. The pace of tech has slowed right down over the last decade - contrast 1994/2004 with 2004/2014.
You're correct that a lot of these strips haven't evolved or progressed, but to a certain extent that's by design, for the same reason different types of stories run in the local paper my mother loves and I just can't stand. The key is, the paper knows I am not buying the paper anymore, but my mother is.
The other thing to keep in mind is that in many cases, these strips aren't even done by the original creators anymore but rather artists hired on to "take on" the strip and produce equatable product. So it isn't as though it's the original creator sitting going through the only jokes he knows... think of them as the Brett Ratner of comic strips.
I don't know if you were intentionally recalling Bill Watterson's comments on this, but as published in The Complete Calvin and Hobbes: The voluntary ending of successful comic strips is something new. More typically, a strip ceases production only when it's such an anachronistic, formulaic, and irrelevant shadow of itself that readers abandon it. Aiming for the widest possible audience, comics have traditionally relied on broad characters, stock situations, and fairly predictable gags and stories. Once established, these strips can run on autopilot for decades, often with nameless assistants doing much of the work. But the most interesting strips have always been those with a genuine sensibilityâ"a quirky, individual take on lifeâ"and this is something that cannot be duplicated or endlessly recycled.
It's the hip thing to lament the Simpsons still being on past its prime. I find it pretty annoying because however the show now compares to its golden years I can't imagine it ever being replaced by something better. I don't find any of MacFarlane's shows to be more enjoyable than the Simpsons at their absolute worst, and some of the Adult Swim stuff barely qualifies as animation. I'd prefer not to see Simpsons cancelled and MacFarlane given another half hour to further explore the themes of misogyny, homophobia, and racism under the disingenuous guise of being anti-PC. If the Simpsons has lost its wit, at least it still has a heart.
Sure, the picture itself was a bit meh, but it set up a pretty funny picture description.
Nice assumption of what you think I saw in the show, but no dice for you. But, in the interest of making burger out of your sacred cow...
My big complaint with the Simpsons is that the characters have become flat stereotypes. For instance, Lisa went from uber-precocious idealist little girl down to the very model of a hipster liberal douchebag - the same kind that I see (and occasionally work with) every day in downtown PDX. The rest have similarly flattened down to the same two-dimensional ultra-predictable 'personalities' that most sitcoms desperately feature with each new TV season. I sample the episodes occasionally nowadays, and I can predict the damned ending by the first commercial break... and that my friend is why I can say with full confidence that they've jumped the frickin' shark.
As someone who has read and appreciated Groening's comics since Life in Hell (long, long before The Tracy Ullman Show aired the earliest episodes of Simpsons), I appreciate his early stuff a whole hell of a lot more than the later stuff - and have no desire or need to take in anything he's done since 2000 or so, due to the fact that it's a lot like discovering that one's favorite soda has gone flat (with the exception of the first few seasons of Futurama, which comprised a brilliant burst of awesomeness in an otherwise fading creative universe).
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
But it follows this: http://xkcd.com/1377/ which is more than balances it.
I disagree. His first year was pretty great to me. His second year started a soft decline, and it got pretty bad as we got to 2008. Now, good comics (in my opinion) are the exception, rather than the rule. This lines up to when he graduated and then went to xkcd full-time (after a short contract at NASA, which I'm given to understand ended because of budget, not because of problems with him).
His target audience seemed to shift from upper-level physics students with a more-than-passing interest in computers, to people with a middle-of-high-school level of education and nerdiness, with many comics seeming like "look at this thing I read about on wikipedia today!". This is totally understandable -- he was not in classes anymore, he's not being exposed to Karnaugh maps as a new concept or anything like that, so we get bad puns and graph comics and "Get out of my head, Randall!"-baiting.
To be fair to the comic, the early xkcd probably resonated exceptionally well with me because I'm about the same age and was taking very similar courses at the exact same time, and then I went off and worked on computers while he went off to be a t-shirt salesman. Very divergent career paths.
Of course, some of the comics seem custom-designed to be pasted into a teacher's slides (as opposed to being a student's doodles). That's good in a different sense -- I wouldn't necessarily read that for enjoyment. I haven't actually read xkcd in ages but I was confident I could find a recent one that fit the bill, and was not disappointed: http://xkcd.com/1354/ does a good job of explaining a concept to somebody not familiar with computer software, while not being terribly entertaining, especially to those who already knew the concept.
I have more fun with his "What If?" scenarios.
MacFarlane's shows have Simpsons'd themselves too though. I'd absolutely put the first few seasons of Family Guy up against most of the Simpsons. I have to admit I haven't watched much new Simpsons in the past...ummm...since that movie, anyway -- so it's conceivable that it's experienced a renaissance, but the last 5 minutes of it that my DVR picks up before the next show hasn't been a convincing ad for it. I watched some old episodes beside some new ones a while back to see if I'd just grown out of it -- and no, the old ones still held up.
The Simpsons disappeared into its own massive character base. It would probably be very reinvigorated if they did had the family move, and were disciplined about NOT bringing old characters back to cameo. Kind of what the Cleveland show did, except, let's not use the most boring character on television. In fact, that's kind of how Futurama started, although it also made good use of the sci-fi setting.
This is also why Family Guy declined -- that, and Stewie changing from a diabolical genius into just another gay joke, and deciding that instead of ignoring the "PC" limits to make jokes, they would actively push the limits as if that was the joke. I don't need another "Barney Gumble is a drunk" joke, and I don't need another "Quagmire is an actual rapist" joke.
Take Dilbert for example. When it came out (in the 1990s, y'all), it was a badass tour-de-force that ripped right into the buzzword bullshit culture that corporate America was at the time. As long as that culture was prevalent**, the overall meme was fully relevant, and it resonated deeply with the cubicle-dwelling audience. Fast forward to today, where much of that has faded - and with it, the whole basis of humor behind Dilbert has sort of faded with it.
Last year when I had a batch of sleepless nights I reread the first 10 or so years of Dilbert online. One thing I miss is the puns. Scott used to not be afraid to use them, but they're rare now. I actually laughed out loud at one strip this year not because of the joke, but because it was the first pun I'd seen in ages.
I was also dismayed to realize my all-time favorite Dilbert strip, one which I printed out and had taped to my desk for years, was from something like 1998. Stumbling into it so "early" in the strip made me realize just how long it's been running.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
The Simpsons disappeared into its own massive character base. It would probably be very reinvigorated if they did had the family move, and were disciplined about NOT bringing old characters back to cameo
I've often suggested they should do an entire season set 6 or 8 years in the future, where Bart and Lisa are in high school and Homer and Marge are getting older, to explore a different slice of life's issues. Sure, they've worked in a few things that are rightly an older kid's story by trickery (Bart getting a driver's license, Lisa "smoking" via second hand, several slightly out of place romances) but there's a lot more teenage material it's not easy to cover.
Also, I just think it would be hilarious if the entire season was done that way without any warning or explanation, and then the season after they reverted to their original ages and timeline, also without any warning or explanation.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
Why did this guy get voted down to a -1 when he posted an honest question? I haven't seen or heard this cartoon mentioned in probably a decade except for those popular cartoons he did with the Calvin character urinating. Maybe you moderators aren't old enough to remember that, but for years they were very popular. How about you stop moderating things you're not old enough to understand?
Yet XKCD keeps producing great moments, which is why I keep reading it.
Agreed.
And the wordplay and the naivety in the 1378 was at least smile worthy.
Its not 'wordplay'; its a cheap pun. A big fan says its not a big fan. I really like XKCD, but that was terrible.
Even 1377 which you claim you didn't enjoy was at least a joke on a science level: creating a metaphor of the universe as an ecosystem and then noting that in ecosystems where the inhabitants are well camouflaged (explaining why we haven't found other alien civilizations) its because there are hostile predators; implying other alien civilizations are keeping their heads down for a good reason. I thought that was at least clever enough to be smile worthy.
Doonesbury's great like Mallard Fillmore is great.
"rah rah, stupid other political party! I laugh at you"
Plus, everybody in that strip looks like they're wearing eyeliner.
Its not 'wordplay'; its a cheap pun. A big fan says its not a big fan. I really like XKCD, but that was terrible.
Windmills do not make great fans.
It is what it is.
Windmills do not make great fans.
Right so ...
"A thing that looks like but is technically not a big fan says that its not a big fan"? (literally) and doubles that up with the meaning that its not enthusiastic about the idea either (ie 'not a fan').
So its 'not a fan' and 'not a fan'. I got it. Its really not that funny or clever.
What's next week? A guinea pig goes on a diet and says its "not a pig"? :groan:
Technically it is an opposite of a fan. Not that that really changes your point. I believe I smiled because of the absurdity. Perhaps because I had just been reminded of the world of Calvin and Hobbes. The person in the strip has a fantastic idea which is then shot down by a stupid pun by a talking windmill. Could be that partial reason for the smile is the appearance of the windmill itself, as windmills have made several appearances in xkcd in different contexts.
But yes, you disliked it, I enjoyed it, XKCD hopefully goes on.
It is what it is.
a talking windmill.
For that matter, I don't usually associate xkcd with randomly talking inanimate everyday objects to deliver punchlines. And stooping to one solely to deliver a bad pun... that's really why i didn't like it. It was just... lazy.
If Calvin and Hobbes had done the joke, it probably wouldn't have involved Calvin talking to a windmill either.
But yes, you disliked it, I enjoyed it, XKCD hopefully goes on.
For sure.