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He quit on a high note, before the strip became tired overly repetitive. This is totally consistent with his actions and the viewpoints he have expressed, where
by olavk 12y ago
He quit on a high note, before the strip became tired overly repetitive. This is totally consistent with his actions and the viewpoints he have expressed, where he consistently have stressed putting quality above quantity.
You may have liked him to act differently, and continue producing to satisfy your craving for quantity. But that he have different values than you does not make him selfish or a hypocrite.
- 6stringmerc 12y agoI didn't say anything about wanting more Calvin and Hobbes. I agree the strip ran its natural course. Are you honestly of the opinion Bill Watterson is/was only capable of that one strip? My point is that he had a platform to do all sorts of other artistic endeavors...completely unrelated to Calvin and Hobbes. He did nothing.
- wishinghand 12y agoI still don't see how Watterson doing nothing is harmful or hypocritical. He felt like he didn't have anything more to give. He refused to put out something less than his standards. While I'm sad he never found anything worth saying, I'm glad he didn't waste words saying nothing.
- olavk 12y agoI have of course no idea if Watterson is capable of producing a new work of the same quality, and neither have you I presume. Some artists are one-hit wonders, but Watterson have on a daily basis produced original work of consistently high quality for a decade. This is far more than can be expected by any artist in any media. In any case it speaks to the strength of his work that you hope for more, but it is disingenuous to call him selfish or a hypocrite because of this.
- egypturnash 12y agoHe did nothing in public. From what I've heard he spent a lot of time puttering around the town he grew up in and painting. Maybe there'll be a show/book/whatever of them someday. Maybe not. When he retired, he'd also shaped a generation's ideas of what a comic strip about a kid should be. Hell, of what comics should be, period - wander around a comic book convention asking people what their big influences are, and a lot of people will mention his name. He'll probably be remembered for another hundred years by anyone who cares to skim the history of the Great Comic Strips of the Twentieth Century. You do something like that, I think you're allowed to retire and do work solely for yourself.