You've probably already heard, but the reclusive CALVIN & HOBBES creator Bill Watterson gives a short interview via email with The Plain Dealer's John Campanelli.
"It's always better to leave the party early. If I had rolled along with the strip's popularity and repeated myself for another five, 10 or 20 years, the people now 'grieving' for 'Calvin and Hobbes' would be wishing me dead and cursing newspapers for running tedious, ancient strips like mine instead of acquiring fresher, livelier talent. And I'd be agreeing with them."
I love C and H. I think Watterson is a genius. I also think he has every right to NOT do what he's choosing not to do - which is communicate with the world. It's his prerogative.
ReplyDeleteI also think we ought to stop fawning on him (by "we", I mean the media. It's unbecoming. It makes us (by "us", I mean the media and overindulgent fans) look like star-crazed school girls with a hyper-estrogenized adolescent crush.
He doesn't care about the attention, so why should "we"? Let him be. It's what he wants, and the best way to honor the man, if that's what it's about, is to grant him his wish of seclusive reticence.