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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.'
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?
Calvin and Hobbes is still syndicated all over the world and according to sales figure I saw a couple of years ago, he is conservatively pulling in a couple hundred thousand dollars a year from the sales of Calvin and Hobbes books (there are 18 of them).
Not bad for a guy who hasn't worked since 1995.
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.
As a matter of fact Watterson never licensed any part of C&H for anything. The guy could have made a medium to large sized fortune if he had, but to him the integrity of the strip was FAR more important. The only reason it is running is certain places is because King Features Syndicate has the right to redistribute the comic.
I was a huge fan of the strip. I mean I knew it had to happen at some point, but I was heartbroken when it stopped.
When my son was born I named him Calvin ( my maternal grandfather ), but the running joke is that he was named after the character. When he was two 3 weeks old, a woman who lived in the same building took a white One-Z and hand painted a beautiful Hobs on it. He is 13 now and it is framed on his bedroom wall.
Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
He doesn't owe us anything. He already gave us the art, and it was great. And it's still around.
Contrast this with other artists who have altered their work so that you can only get bootleg copies of the original anymore, and who we pray will not alter it further.
Personally, I think there ought to be a copyright exemption for a work that an author refuses to publish. Copyright is supposed to encourage publishing.
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