Bill

Bill Watterson
Watterson
ABOUT
BILL WATTERSON
• Comic strip star artist Bill Watterson was
born on July 5, 1958 in Washington, D.C.
• Son of a patent examiner and a former
city council member and has one younger
brother.
• Watterson attended Kenyon College with a
Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and
graduated in 1980.
 Sketching his career…
• He was offered a job drawing political
cartoons by the Cincinnati Post. The post
didn’t work out for Watterson, however –
he believes that he didn’t live up to the
editor’s expectations. And he soon found
himself jobless.
• From there he would work at designing
grocery advertisements for four years.
Attempt to Syndicate his
work
• He constantly kept his work for
syndication to various publishing
• All of his six comic strip got rejected
• Ironically, which he drew for himself, got
selected for publishing,
• His most famous and very closed strip was
first published on November 18, 1985.
 And Viola…………
The first Calvin and Hobbes, Watterson created his
own little comic strip world, one in which a young boy
with a penchant for mischief and his philosophizing
tiger have constant adventures. Working with pure
fiction and his own personality and experiences to
create his comics, Watterson quickly had a hit on his
hands.
His beliefs that got the
world to change its view
• He believed that the art (his comic strip) should
not suffer because it is compressed into a small
format.
• Watterson’s beliefs as to how cartoons should be
made soon conflicted with the space restrictions
of most newspapers.
• He was particularly influential in changing the
format of Sunday strips. Normally Sunday strips
contain a title box and then a series of
rectangular panels of varying sizes that the artist
is bound to; thanks to his persistence, however,
Watterson soon had the Sunday format adapted
to his own tastes, and his Sunday comics would
often stretch as far down as the entire page and
be covered in inventive panel arrangements!!!!!!!!
Awards received by
Watterson
• Not long after the advent of Calvin and Hobbes
Watterson was given the National Cartoonists
Society’s Reuben Award in 1986, and the Humor
Comic Strip Award form the same society in the
same year. Watterson marked the youngest
person ever to receive a Reuben. He won the
Reuben again in 1988 and received a third
nomination in 1992, though he didn’t win. It was
discovered soon after that no artist could win a
Reuben twice.
• Watterson has said he believes in his work for
the personal fulfilment it brings. As he told the
graduating class of 1990 at Kenyon College, "It's
surprising how hard we'll work when the work is
done just for ourselves.“
 Appreciating the critic –
not another critical
appreciation.
• Watterson is one of the best favourite critics.
• His work Calvin and Hobbes is been a one hit
wonder since its first launch.
• He puts forth ideas and its consequences, current
(economic and political) scenario and its effects
into his comic strip in a way that would make the
authorities blink and the people laugh
• The fact that he has used this 6yr kid and his
play tiger to come out and tell the world facts and
issues to be dealt is amazing!
 Why not license?
• Why isn't the market flooded with feature
toys of the tiger?
• Why is Calvin’s mischief printed in T-
shirts?
• Why don’t we get licensed/ non- licensed
play toys of the characters in this cartoon
strip?
One single answer – No to licensing
 Why ?
• He is apprehensive about the possibility of
spending more time on business and less on
his strip. "They're beginning to talk about
licensing," Watterson said. Calvin T-shirts,
stuffed Hobbes's, Calvin and Hobbes lunch
boxes, pencil cases, notebooks, drinking
mugs, posters, toys, greeting cards, games,
etc.
• "Licensing, for me, is a tough question. There is a lot of
money to be made," Watterson says, invoking the names
of Peanuts and Garfield. Licensing can transform a six-
figure income into a seven-figure income. "I don't have a
problem with licensing per se, but I think there could be a
danger to the integrity of the strip." Say, for example, that
somebody wanted to transform Calvin and Hobbes into
an animated cartoon. Unless the quality of animation
were top-notch, Watterson would oppose such a venture.
 Ending the race…
• Despite the great success of Calvin and
Hobbes Watterson retired the strip in
1995, the last strip appearing on
December 31. Since then Watterson has
become reclusive: he refuses to sign
autographs, won’t license any of his
characters and is reluctant to give any
interviews. He now spends much of his
time painting at his home in Cleveland.
• Nonetheless, the idea of seeing Calvin and
Hobbes cartoons on television appeals to him.
"Animation seems to be one of the few areas
where I could communicate what I'm trying
to get across on the printed page," he said.
"But it's not too likely anyone will see Calvin
cartoons in the near future. I'd want to have
so much creative control, and make the
quality of the animation so much better than
what's on TV now, that they'd probably be
too expensive to make."
• Watterson battled against pressure from
publishers to merchandise his work, something
he felt would cheapen his comic. He refused to
merchandise his creations on the grounds that
displaying Calvin and Hobbes images on
commercially sold mugs, stickers and T-shirts
would devalue the characters and their
personalities
• Watterson announced the end of Calvin and
Hobbes on November 9th 1995, with no regrets
and with words that if he would have continued it
his characters might have lost their value in
changing time.
• Teaching lessons
 WE LEAVE YOU WITH HIS
CXTHOUGHTS……
• I find my life is a lot easier the lower I keep everyone's
expectations.
• The world of a comic strip ought to be a special place with its
own logic and life... I don't want the issue of Hobbes's
reality settled by a doll manufacturer.
• The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the
universe is that it has never tried to contact us.
• I know the world isn't fair, but why isn't it ever unfair in my
favor?
• Things are never quite as scary when you've got a best friend.
• I think we dream so we don't have to be apart so long. If
we're in each other's dreams, we can play together all night.
• I liked things better when I didn't understand them.
• I'm not dumb. I just have a command of thoroughly useless
information.