Actually Never

This was never meant to be solely a movie review blog, but one of my New Year’s resolutions was to watch more movies. Another was to write more.

Plus, I don’t really have a way to write about Calvin + Hobbes here otherwise.

What I knew

I’ve read every Calvin + Hobbes strip a zillion times over. And I’m familiar with the lore; Bill Watterson is famously reclusive, disinterested in fame, turned down tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars by refusing to licence Calvin + Hobbes for merchandise and animated movies and whatnot.

Fun fact: I did once own one of the few pieces of actual legitimate non-book Calvin + Hobbes merchandise ever made. I got a Calvin + Hobbes calendar for Christmas one year. Looks like they only made calendars for two years, 1989 and 1990. Googling the cover art, I think mine was the 1990 edition but that’s just a guess. It would be worth a fair bit today if I’d held onto it in good condition. Instead I used it as a calendar and got rid of it when the year was over as God intended.

What I could never remember: is it “Watterson” or “Watterston?” I always want to put that extra T in there when I’m saying it. Looks wrong though. Because it is.

What I know

It has to be challenging to create a documentary about someone who not only won’t participate, but there isn’t even really any archival footage to use. That said, despite the title, this is less about Bill Watterson and more a love letter to Calvin + Hobbes from fans and fellow cartoonists.

Seeing some of where Watterson grew up was interesting. I knew the setting of Calvin + Hobbes was based on what he grew up with but I didn’t realize to what degree. The landscape really looks like the backgrounds in the strip.

Did I learn a ton from the documentary? Not really. Like I said, I was pretty familiar with all this going in. But it was nice just to spend the time looking back at Calvin + Hobbes and examining its legacy. It’s been a while since I’ve re-read the collection but they’ve always been important to me. Seeing one panel was enough to make me remember a whole strip.

The documentary – especially the interviews with other cartoonists – made me want to restart my GoComics subscription. How many new good strips are out there, though? It seems like most of them are in reruns, or only running new strips on Sundays.

I especially liked that they included an interview with Jef Mallett from Frazz, a strip that is pretty openly inspired by Calvin + Hobbes. The main character even looks like a grown-up Calvin with a Hobbes-like personality.

Speaking of other cartoonists, it’s a shame this documentary was released before Watterson’s surprise return to the comics page in three Pearls Before Swine strips. The timing is what it is, but it would have made a great inclusion.

One idea that came up repeatedly in the film is about how there are individual strips that connect strongly with people, and it’s very personal. This is the first one I always think of and I’ll let you decide what that says about me: