Watterson, unlike just about all of his colleagues, could really draw—like a great watercolorist, his style looked simple but his casual lines always fell in just the right spots, and he could light up a face with a few quick touches. He could really show his stuff in the big Sunday layouts, but even his daily strips were well-rendered, whch is why he jousted with newspapers that were shrinking down his panels in order to squeeze more funnies onto a single page. It's also why this new deluxe three-volume set, The Complete Calvin and Hobbes, is way more than a cartoonist's vanity project. Like Winsor McCay and Walt Kelly, Bill Watterson produced comic strips that deserve the A-level treatment. Another reason to be happy for this new edition is that it's led some newspapers to start re-running the old strips. I don't suppose it will inspire Watterson to limber up his pen one more time, but we can always hope.
Originally published in The Opinion Mill.
Edited: PC
Article comments
1 - DrPat
It was another Chagrin Falls -- Minnesota, I believe -- that was home to a different genial, philosophic, tall animal cartoon character: Bullwinkle.
Great review, Steven!
2 - Pat Cummings
This book review has been selected for Advance.net. You'll be able to find this and other Blog Critics reviews at such places as Cleveland.com’s Book Reviews column.
3 - Vern Halen
I think Bullwinkle was actually from Frostbite Falls, just down the road from Chagrin Falls apiece.
Calvin & Hobbes - right up ther with Walt Kelly's Pogo & Gary Larson's The Far Side. The big three.
4 - Eric Olsen
very nice job Steven, thanks! He is vastly talented, always has been. I went to high school with Bill - he illustrated a couple of my stories. He is back in Chagrin last I heard, pulling a Salinger. I wrote about it here
5 - Mat Brewster
Very nicely done. Though I own all the books already, this is on my christmas list.
EO, is there anyone you don't know?
6 - El Bicho
Looks like a great collection, but I already have all the books. Still that would look glorious on a bookshelf.
I consider myself lucky to have discovered his genius, especially while he was active. I stopped reading the daily comics once he quit.
The only thing I find enjoyable there now is Fox Trot, which is not to say that it rises even close to the same level of brillance in its stories, art or thought-provokingness.
El Bicho
Grand Poo-Bah and Vice Potentate of G.R.O.S.S.
(Get Rid of Slimy girlS)
7 - Joanie
Funny, Chagrin Falls also happens to be the place where Tim Conway grew up (he was born in Willoughby).
Perhaps Watterson knew me as a child. That's what my mom always said when she read C&H. I was the female equivalent of Calvin. I had a little stuffed tiger, too.
8 - Temple Stark
Good work. Steven (and the Washington Post). Is there any meant-to-be funny comic that's better?
9 - Timzloff
"Chagrin Falls" is also a great song on the Tragically Hip CD Phantom Power.
10 - Temple A. Stark
Late notice but,
This post was chosen by the section editor as a BC pick of the week. Go HERE (link) to find out why.
And thank you
- Temple
11 - Scott Butki
great review. Welcome to BC. I'm going to have check out this book. I'm hoping I can read it while
at Borders - that they don't have it in a bag or anything. I'll just camp out until I finish reading it
since I can't afford to buy it.
12 - Evan
Calvin does stuff i that i used to do