Bill Watterson is a cartoonist most well-known for his highly popular comic strip series Calvin & Hobbes, which ran syndicated for ten years from nineteen-eighty five to nineteen-ninety five. He had ended the strip with a press statement to newspaper editors that he felt he had accomplished all that he could in the medium. The abrupt end to the series has only added to his reclusive nature as an artist.
What I really enjoyed about Watterson’s work was the range of detail he could execute his projects with. Naturally in the realm of the comic strip, the characters in Calvin and Hobbes were often drawn very simply, but every so often we’d also glimpse the true depth of skill he possessed. In the strip below we see a look into Calvin’s childlike imagination, and in his daydream we see a fairly realistic look at a number of dinosaurs… flying jet planes. Either way, I feel the popularity of the series stemmed in part due to many scenes like this and his experiments with illustration.
I don't see Bill Watterson as just an icon within the illustration world. Calvin and Hobbes was always so wonderful because of the vast amount of imagination and emotion he poured into his work. Of course, his character rendering and the contrast between simplistic and realistic contribute to the appeal of his art as well.
ReplyDeletecalvin and hobbes was one of my favorite comics as a kid, and even more so now that im older and understand it more.
ReplyDeleteWhat I love about calvin and hobbes is how timeless it is. Not only that but the revolutionary steps that watterson took to completely shake up what sunday strips were about is also incredibly commendable on top of his already fantastic work
ReplyDeleteI use to read this every Sunday morning in the paper. I really like his sense of humor.
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