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I first saw Watterson's work when I was in college. I was drawing political cartoons for the Ohio State Lantern. He was doing the same for the Kenyon College paper, about 20 miles away. I thought, gotta keep my eye on this guy. We'll compete for jobs. https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2020/12/31/calvin-hobbes-bill-watterson/
He landed a gig at the Cincinnati Post, a dying atfternoon rag. I was bummed that job got snatched, but it turned out to be a nightmare for Watterson. The editor was a control freak who meddled with Watterson's cartoons constantly, and then sacked him after a few months!
How'd you like to be the dope who fired Bill Waterson?? Dude must've been a laughing stock in his newsroom for the rest of his career!
So a couple years later, I'm a political cartoonist at the afternoon rag in West Palm Beach, FL. The only way they could justify my hire was to have me do another job– hand coloring the daily comics page! With markers!
It was a bullshit gig, boring as hell, but it only took an hour or so a day. Worst thing was it forced me to read the awful daily comic strips of 1985. Ugh. Gawd, what a miserable collection of crap.
But here's Calvin & Hobbes and I could tell right away that this was a stand out. Easy to color, too, since it was so clean. I always gave it extra effort, as opposed to garbage like Marmaduke.
I was moving away from mainstream comics in 1985, but I could appreciate the excellence. I freely admit I never "got" C&H. That has nothing to do with anything except where my own head was with comics at the time.
In 1986 I move to Cleveland to take what turned out to be a miserable staff cartoonist gig at the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Here's Watterson again. He lives here. C&H is a hit by 86, but Watterson is also doing political cartoons for a suburban weekly paper chain, Sun Newspapers.
The Sun Papers were hyper local, covering burby city halls and zoning boards, the shit the corporate daily couldn't be bothered with.
These have never been reprinted, to my knowledge. You Watterson fans would probably lose your minds over them. I remember them as being really good, much better than the veteran hack the Plain Dealer had at the time!
The Cleveland Public Library has Sun Papers in their newspaper archive. On microfiche! You'd have to go to the main library and use the vintage viewers to see or copy them. Don't know what microfiche is? Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=iu9yuezDSIQ
Watterson still lives here in Cleveland. Somewhere in my part of town, too. Nah, I've never tried to contact him. He doesn't want to be bothered and I respect that.
So Watterson is another important creator in the lineage of Cleveland (and Ohio) comics. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/comic-riffs/wp/2016/07/19/wait-just-how-did-ohio-become-the-cradle-of-great-cartoonists/
Then fast forward a million years and in 2014, I win an Angoulême Prize. And who is named Grand Marshal at the ceremony for the 2015 festival? Yep. Watterson. I can't escape the guy! haha.
He didn't show, but he contributed a poster. Another rarity for you C&H fans.
He didn't show, but he contributed a poster. Another rarity for you C&H fans.
I really respect the guy for dropping the mic and walking off the stage. 10 years is really all a daily comic strip should last. It's just such a grind. Gary Larson did the same with the Far Side, maybe a tad longer. I deeply regret not retiring my weekly strip after 10.
But I wasn't making the bread Watterson and Larson made. I needed that strip income, until I started pumping out the books.
Still regret it though, from an artistic body-of-work standpoint. Curse my German pragmatism!
Here's another @comicriffs piece on us Ohio comics creators. Leaves out a few, like Ethel Hayes, the 1st syndicated woman cartoonist, and the current king of kids comics, Dav Pilkey (raised in Cleveland, went to Kent State). https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/comic-riffs/wp/2016/07/19/wait-just-how-did-ohio-become-the-cradle-of-great-cartoonists/
Oops. Posted that twice in this thread. Oh well.
Probably shuld have written it as "Pilkey is the Kurrent King of Kids Komics," too.
Probably shuld have written it as "Pilkey is the Kurrent King of Kids Komics," too.
Oh. The Plain Dealer posted a bunch of Watterson political cartoons here. The PD bought the Sun Papers decades ago, and gutted them, a few years before gutting its own staff. God, I detest the creeps that run that operation. https://www.cleveland.com/life_and_culture/erry-2018/06/96af0ed5271457/100_years_of_cleveland_editori.html
So the PD owns the rights to Watterson's political cartoons, since that was freelance work-for-hire. Surprised they haven't tried to cash in on that! The billionaire owners have sold everything else, right down to the office furniture.
I forgot I did a blog post several years ago about my many college contemporaries. I included some of Watterson's college work for the Kenyon College paper.
This is one he did about Ohio Gov. Rhodes, the main villain in KENT STATE and still in power in the 80s!
This is one he did about Ohio Gov. Rhodes, the main villain in KENT STATE and still in power in the 80s!
Here's the post, if any are curious.
https://derfcity.blogspot.com/2014/06/when-college-cartoons-were-great.html
https://derfcity.blogspot.com/2014/06/when-college-cartoons-were-great.html
Haha. If he's watching from the Twitter underbrush, Watterson is probably pissed at me for posting this early stuff! Well, I think it's great. I love seeing humble beginnings, and progression. Sorry, Bill!
