Yesterday, grayleaf said, “@Hobbes… In one of his collections, Watterson spent more than a little time praising the luxuries of space that were afforded comic strips in the first half of the (20th) century… I got the sense that Watterson felt he may have been born fifty years too late. In our opinion, of course, he was born right on time…”Hi grayleafIf Bill Watterson had been born fifty years earlier, it’s hard to imagine how different his strips would have been from what we have today. He would have grown up reading Krazy Kat, but not Pogo or Peanuts. In that case, perhaps today we would all be marveling over a much more simplistic strip with lots of room for backgrounds on Sundays, but maybe containing mostly a lot of slapstick humor. Perhaps it would be called “The Zany Tiger,” or something like that. Who knows?What actually happened was that George Herriman’s Krazy Kat heavily influenced Charles Schulz, who broke the comic strip mold with Peanuts, which then, together with Walt Kelly’s Pogo, finally inspired Bill Watterson to take things a step further in Calvin and Hobbes, by adding his own brand of genius and more complexity.As an imperfect analogy, I like to think about the world of classical music. To me, Bach was the “George Herriman” (Krazy Kat) of the Baroque period. Mozart was the “Schulz” (Peanuts) who was influenced by Bach. Mozart broke the mold during the Classical period by creating music that was incredibly beautiful in its simplicity and yet touched deeper human feelings, like Schulz with Peanuts. Then Mozart inspired Beethoven (“Watterson” – Calvin and Hobbes) to take things a step further by adding his own brand of genius and more complexity.Even a genius does not live in a vacuum, but builds upon the past.
By the way, Bill Watterson finally got his wish in 1992, when the syndicate forced the newspapers to begin printing his Sunday strips in their entirety, no longer allowing the papers to throw away the first row of panels as many of them had done in the past. This finally gave Watterson the page space and flexibility that he had been longing for.So, for the last three years or so of Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson had the space and freedom that he had desired from fifty years earlier, plus the advantage of having grown up with Peanuts and Pogo (Haydn?……. No, not a good analogy to Walt Kelly…..) In the end, Watterson had the best of both worlds.
Yesterday, grayleaf said, “@Hobbes… In one of his collections, Watterson spent more than a little time praising the luxuries of space that were afforded comic strips in the first half of the (20th) century… I got the sense that Watterson felt he may have been born fifty years too late. In our opinion, of course, he was born right on time…”Hi grayleafIf Bill Watterson had been born fifty years earlier, it’s hard to imagine how different his strips would have been from what we have today. He would have grown up reading Krazy Kat, but not Pogo or Peanuts. In that case, perhaps today we would all be marveling over a much more simplistic strip with lots of room for backgrounds on Sundays, but maybe containing mostly a lot of slapstick humor. Perhaps it would be called “The Zany Tiger,” or something like that. Who knows?What actually happened was that George Herriman’s Krazy Kat heavily influenced Charles Schulz, who broke the comic strip mold with Peanuts, which then, together with Walt Kelly’s Pogo, finally inspired Bill Watterson to take things a step further in Calvin and Hobbes, by adding his own brand of genius and more complexity.As an imperfect analogy, I like to think about the world of classical music. To me, Bach was the “George Herriman” (Krazy Kat) of the Baroque period. Mozart was the “Schulz” (Peanuts) who was influenced by Bach. Mozart broke the mold during the Classical period by creating music that was incredibly beautiful in its simplicity and yet touched deeper human feelings, like Schulz with Peanuts. Then Mozart inspired Beethoven (“Watterson” – Calvin and Hobbes) to take things a step further by adding his own brand of genius and more complexity.Even a genius does not live in a vacuum, but builds upon the past.
By the way, Bill Watterson finally got his wish in 1992, when the syndicate forced the newspapers to begin printing his Sunday strips in their entirety, no longer allowing the papers to throw away the first row of panels as many of them had done in the past. This finally gave Watterson the page space and flexibility that he had been longing for.So, for the last three years or so of Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson had the space and freedom that he had desired from fifty years earlier, plus the advantage of having grown up with Peanuts and Pogo (Haydn?……. No, not a good analogy to Walt Kelly…..) In the end, Watterson had the best of both worlds.