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Looking for Calvin and Hobbes: The Unconventional Story of Bill Watterson and his Revolutionary Comic Strip (2009)

de Nevin Martell

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21715123,316 (2.94)5
For ten years, Calvin and Hobbes was one the world's most beloved comic strips. And then, on the last day of 1995, the strip ended. Its mercurial and reclusive creator, Bill Watterson, not only finished the strip but withdrew entirely from public life. In Looking for Calvin and Hobbes, Nevin Martell sets out on a very personal odyssey to understand the life and career of the intensely private man behind Calvin and Hobbes. Martell talks to a wide range of artists and writers (including Dave Barry, Harvey Pekar, and Brad Bird) as well as some of Watterson's closest friends and professional colleagues, and along the way reflects upon the nature of his own fandom and on the extraordinary legacy that Watterson left behind. This is as close as we're ever likely to get to one of America's most ingenious and intriguing figures - and it's the fascinating story of an intrepid author's search for him, too.… (mais)
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Mostrando 1-5 de 15 (seguinte | mostrar todas)
Meh. I don't know what I expected/wanted from this book. (I only found it while searching for Calvin & Hobbes at my library.) It's weird for someone to try and offer so much "insight" into the comic strip with any input from the author, or without any allowed reproduction of the comics. If that's the case, perhaps he should have abandoned this idea.

Martell notes his love and "profound respect" for Bill Watterson, and then goes to all sorts of lengths to pry into aspects of his life -old teachers, friends, random people from his hometown, his brother, his mother. Nice effort, but it seems like if you respect someone (profoundly, even) then you can respect their wish for privacy. Something really doesn't fit.

I also felt like there was something off about Martell's writing style. The words didn't flow very naturally -like he'd systematically tried to craft each sentence, and thus lost all true personality. He talks about himself a lot, but since there's no genuine first person feel it has no impact.

I did enjoy the heaps of love other writers/artists gave to Calvin & Hobbes. They mentioned specific qualities to the strip that I'd never really thought about before, particularly in the drawing stage.

All in all, I'd advise against reading this. Bill Watterson is quoted heavily from the 10th Anniversary book, so why not just read that instead and enjoy some snazzy comic strips in the process? ( )
  Allyoopsi | Jun 22, 2022 |
3.5 For once in my life I was in on a trend early -- that was Calvin and Hobbes. This book is a total fan-boy attempt to uncover the elusive Watterson, and hero worship aside, the author does a pretty good job of connecting the dots, considering the main goal, the man himself is missing. Martell's paean has made me want to dig out my C&H collection, which I have since passed on to my sons and re-read and luxuriate in the hilarious adventures of the boy and his tiger. What Martell has also made me appreciate more is Watterson's artistic talent, which I believe I took entirely for granted. This thorough book has used as many resources as possible (interviews with other cartoonists & Watterson's mother, a trip to his home town, hundreds of newspapers and books) and any other minuscule clues Martell could uncover about this man who decidedly does not want to be found or engaged on the topic of C&H or any other. I admire Watterson's integrity regarding his art and creative process, but (still) mourn the loss of a great comic strip that dominated the "funnies" and set a near-impossible standard for anything that came after. One interviewee, Patton Oswalt summed it up well: "Watterson reminded you that imagination was more powerful than despair....He wanted to remind you that there's always wonder out there." (185) ( )
  CarrieWuj | Oct 24, 2020 |
I’ve been a comic strip reader as long as I can remember, starting with all the classics of the 1950s when I was just a kid. At some point in the eighties, my taste in comics switched over to those strips with more sophisticated artwork, or the ones that addressed my more adult concerns. But really, it was always about cartoonists who could actually make me laugh out loud on a regular basis. So, for years, my favorite comic strips were Dilbert, The Far Side, and Calvin and Hobbes. Sadly for many of us, the cartoonists responsible for both The Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes shut the strips down way before fans were ready to see that happen. I grieve the loss of those two strips to this day. Dilbert, on the other hand, is still out there, having long outlived the period in my life during which I actually read a daily newspaper.

Looking for Calvin and Hobbes: The Unconventional Story of Bill Watterson and His Revolutionary Comic Strip was written by superfan Nevin Martell and published in late 2009. I recently watched a documentary in which Martell explored Bill Watterson’s decision to disappear from public view. That’s, in fact, how I became aware of Martell’s book. When he began the book, Martell still hoped that he would be able to convince Watterson to give him an interview that he could use to close it out. But Watterson, being the recluse that he still is, never responded to the author’s letter or attempts to reach him through third-party friends or business associates. Still, Martell does manage to end the book in an interesting way by visiting Chagrin Falls, Ohio, Watterson’s hometown, where he managed to snag a rather pleasant interview with the cartoonist’s mother.

Calvin and Hobbes was a daily comic strip for ten years if you count the two nine-month periods in the nineties during which Watterson took much needed sabbaticals from the grind and pressure of producing a comic strip under such tight deadlines. The strip went into rerun mode during those eighteen months. Then, in October 1995, Watterson ended the strip for good. And he never looked back.

Bill Watterson hates fame; he wants absolutely no part of it, even refusing to let his cartoon characters be licensed for sale as stuffed animals, dolls, toy figures, or anything else. That decision caused him and his syndicator millions and millions of dollars over time, but Watterson never wavered in his determination to keep the strip pure to his vision. Bill Watterson accomplished more with his 3,160 comic strips than most other cartoonists can only dream about. He greatly influenced his cartoonist contemporaries - setting such a high bar that he probably made his competitors better than they would have been without him - and the generation of cartoonists who followed him. But he was such a private man, that it is hard to find anyone except for perhaps his friends from high school and college who can claim to really know the man. Watterson’s reclusive lifestyle makes J.D. Salinger’s look like that of a carnival husker in comparison.

Martell sums of Watterson’s impact on the world this way:

“Even though Watterson hadn’t set out to create something with mass appeal, Calvin and Hobbes did ultimately attract an audience that was without age limits or cultural boundaries. It was universally understandable without becoming meaningless or trite. It’s attractiveness never detracted from its artistry or depth. In that way, the strip was the ultimate piece of pop art.”

I couldn’t agree with him more. Bill Watterson has a very rare talent, and it’s a terrible shame that he didn’t share it with us longer than he did. ( )
  SamSattler | Sep 3, 2020 |
Mediocre writing on a compelling topic. It was amusing to learn some of the stories tangential to the education of a comic strip genius, but the activity of Watterson's cartooning remains, necessarily, untouched and untouchable. Bill Watterson preserves his integrity and allure as an artist in this study of everything that went on around him; in the cultural tornado that swirled around Calvin and Hobbes, Watterson remains the unknowable eye. ( )
  jostie13 | May 14, 2020 |
All through reading this, I imagined an archeologist trying to put together pieces and hoping that what was assembled came close to the real thing. For a man as intensely private as Watterson, whose own parents and brother refuse interviews to honor his wishes, secondary sources are about the best Martell could do. My feeling manifested explicitly in Martell's epilogue:
"I had an epiphany near the end of writing this book, which made me realize that I was in the midst of an archeologist's puzzle[...]The archeologist accepts at the outset that all the pieces aren't there and they don't even know what they're trying to put together."


After reading this, I do believe I will in my near future pull out my Complete Calvin and Hobbes that I saved from the fire (minus the sleeve) and read all 3160 strips again.

One primary source available to Martell was Watterson's October 27th, 1989 address to a Festical of Cartoon Art at Ohio State University:
I consider it a great privilege to be a cartoonist. I love my work, and I am grateful for the incredible forum I have to express my thoughts. People give me their attention for a few seconds every day, and I take that as an honor and a responsibility. I try to give readers the best strip I’m capable of doing. I look at cartoons as an art, as a form of personal expression. That’s why I don’t hire assistants, why I write and draw every line myself, why I draw and paint special art for each of my books, and why I refuse to dilute or corrupt the strip’s message with merchandising. I want to draw cartoons, not supervise a factory. I had a lot of fun as a kid reading comics, and now I’m in the position where I can return some of that fun.

Principled to this day. ( )
  Razinha | May 23, 2017 |
Mostrando 1-5 de 15 (seguinte | mostrar todas)
Looking For Calvin And Hobbes—a first go at the canonical comic by Filter contributing editor Nevin Martell—is as clunky as Watterson’s work was graceful.
 
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For ten years, Calvin and Hobbes was one the world's most beloved comic strips. And then, on the last day of 1995, the strip ended. Its mercurial and reclusive creator, Bill Watterson, not only finished the strip but withdrew entirely from public life. In Looking for Calvin and Hobbes, Nevin Martell sets out on a very personal odyssey to understand the life and career of the intensely private man behind Calvin and Hobbes. Martell talks to a wide range of artists and writers (including Dave Barry, Harvey Pekar, and Brad Bird) as well as some of Watterson's closest friends and professional colleagues, and along the way reflects upon the nature of his own fandom and on the extraordinary legacy that Watterson left behind. This is as close as we're ever likely to get to one of America's most ingenious and intriguing figures - and it's the fascinating story of an intrepid author's search for him, too.

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