I had a birthday and realized that I am now as old as Bill Watterson was when he retired.
I used to think he was selfish for denying his fans more of what we loved, but part of getting older is gaining some perspective, and these days I respect him more and more with each passing year. His artistic integrity is unmatched in comics, in my opinion.
For those who weren’t alive in the 90s and early 2000s, you might not know that people openly called him naive and stupid for refusing to license his characters and for “quitting while he was ahead” when he suddenly stopped making Calvin and Hobbes.
“Think about how much money he could make if he just made CALENDARS. I mean, calendars ALONE.”
Time has shown that he was right, I think. We only remember it as a perfect comic strip. It never jumped the shark and it never became a vague pop culture reference of cute drawings on t-shirts divorced from the incredible writing.
As someone who absolutely would sell cute drawings of our characters on shirts, I wish I had that level of artistic integrity. It must have taken a lot of discipline to fight so hard and then walk away.
P.S. this post is just meant to be reflective and not some weird coded “I’m retiring too” post. I just re-read it and realized it could come across that way. We’re doing this for a lot longer. We have merch to peddle.
Bad Ink Studios
I had a birthday and realized that I am now as old as Bill Watterson was when he retired.
I used to think he was selfish for denying his fans more of what we loved, but part of getting older is gaining some perspective, and these days I respect him more and more with each passing year. His artistic integrity is unmatched in comics, in my opinion.
For those who weren’t alive in the 90s and early 2000s, you might not know that people openly called him naive and stupid for refusing to license his characters and for “quitting while he was ahead” when he suddenly stopped making Calvin and Hobbes.
“Think about how much money he could make if he just made CALENDARS. I mean, calendars ALONE.”
Time has shown that he was right, I think. We only remember it as a perfect comic strip. It never jumped the shark and it never became a vague pop culture reference of cute drawings on t-shirts divorced from the incredible writing.
As someone who absolutely would sell cute drawings of our characters on shirts, I wish I had that level of artistic integrity. It must have taken a lot of discipline to fight so hard and then walk away.
P.S. this post is just meant to be reflective and not some weird coded “I’m retiring too” post. I just re-read it and realized it could come across that way. We’re doing this for a lot longer. We have merch to peddle.
2 weeks ago | [YT] | 2,619