a great middle moment

Calvin and Hobbes had an animators sensibility… One of the things they teach you in acting is that when you come on stage, the moment doesn’t begin when you come on stage; you’re coming from somewhere and you’re coming from a series of experiences that have led to this moment. Not only in terms of your character’s overall life, but on that particular day. What were you doing ten minutes before your entrance? What were you doing an hour before your entrance? It all has an effect on how you enter, so its not a generic thing. The same goes for movement; you’re coming from somewhere and you’re going towards something. Watterson always found a great middle moment that always felt like the whole body was feeling the attitude. You can feel like the whole body was feeling the attitude. You can feel the moment before, and you can feel the moments that are coming after it. It feels like a piece of action rather than a pose.



Brad Bird, Pixar director, as quoted in Looking for Calvin and Hobbes: The Unconventional Story of Bill Watterson and His Revolutionary Comic Strip by Nevin Martell. Continuum Intl Pub Group, 2010 p.215

a tiny marvel of nature

Looking for Calvin and Hobbes: The Unconventional Story of Bill Watterson and His Revolutionary Comic Strip by Nevin Martell. Continuum Intl Pub Group, 2010 p. 112

engage and imagine what is beyond the obvious

Watterson brings a sense of wonder to the natural world. There is a transportative quality to the snowy mornings and autumn afternoons he sketched out in black and white. You can feel this world wrapping itself around you and drawing you in – and the more you give in to Watterson ‘s power of suggestion, the more fun you’ll have.


In one panel in particular, Calvin and Hobbes are walking across a grassy meadow toward the forest on the far side. Watterson had to sketch only a few blades of grass and a lone tree in order to suggest the whole scene. Less artistically dexterous cartoonists would have to fill in every detail and every blade of grass. Next to nothing can be left to the imagination. This literalism distracts from the richness of the imaginative experience for the reader. The more you give the reader, the less their minds need to work. With Watterson’s drawings you can’t be complacent, you need to engage and imagine what is beyond the obvious. In this way, a casual walk across a meadow becomes an afternoon in the woods for the reader.


Looking for Calvin and Hobbes: The Unconventional Story of Bill Watterson and His Revolutionary Comic Strip by Nevin Martell. Continuum Intl Pub Group, 2010 p. 111

if I do not exist intact

The Los Angeles Times assigned writer Paul Dean to do a piece on Watterson in the spring of 1987 that they hoped would be a definitive profile. In a way it was, but not in the way they had imagined. The resulting article, “Calvin and Hobbes creator draws on the simple life,” found Watterson with his hackles raised. “Calvin and Hobbes will not exist intact if I do not exist intact,” Watterson told Dean. “And I will not exist intact if I have to put up with all this stuff.”



Looking for Calvin and Hobbes: The Unconventional Story of Bill Watterson and His Revolutionary Comic Strip by Nevin Martell. Continuum Intl Pub Group, 2010 p.94

full of life and unpredictability

If you can sum up who your characters are in a sentence or two, you’re in trouble. People are complicated, and cartoon characters need to reflect that complexity to be intriguing to the reader. One reason Pogo is fun to read and reread is that the core characters are many-sided. They all have good sides and bad that reveal themselves gradually. The characters are full of life and unpredictability.


Bill Watterson, as quoted in Looking for Calvin and Hobbes: The Unconventional Story of Bill Watterson and His Revolutionary Comic Strip by Nevin Martell. Continuum Intl Pub Group, 2010 p.73, 74

first to be conscious

A creator is not in advance of his generation but he is the first of his contemporaries to be conscious of what is happening to his generation.


Picasso by Gertrude Stein. Courier Dover Publications. 1984. p.30

camouflage is cubism

I very well remember at the beginning of the war being with Picasso on the boulevard Raspail when the first camouflaged truck passed. It was at night, we had heard of camouflage but we had not yet seen it and Picasso amazed looked at it and then cried out, yes it is we who made it, that is cubism.


Picasso by Gertrude Stein. Courier Dover Publications. 1984. p.11

forced to make it ugly

Then commenced the long period which Max Jacob has called the Heroic Age of Cubism, and it was an heroic age. All ages are heroic, that is to say there are heroes in all ages who do things because they cannot do otherwise and neither they nor the others understand how and why these things happen. One does not ever understand, before they are completely created, what is happening and one does not at all understand what one has done until the moment when it is all done. Picasso said once that he who created a thing is forced to make it ugly. In the effort to create the intensity and the struggle to create this intensity, the result always produces a certain ugliness, those who follow can make of this thing a beautiful thing because they know what they are doing, the thing having already been invented, but the inventor because he does not know what he is going to invent inevitably the thing he makes must have its ugliness.


Picasso by Gertrude Stein. Courier Dover Publications. 1984. p.9

completely emptying himself

The thing that I want to insist upon is that Picasso’s gift is completely the gift of a painter and a draughtsman, he is a man who always has need of emptying himself, of completely emptying himself, it is necessary that he should be greatly stimulated so that he could be active enough to empty himself completely.


Picasso by Gertrude Stein. Courier Dover Publications. 1984. p.5

Remain Frugal. The less you can live on, the more chance your idea will succeed. This is true even after you've "made it".

In 1997, I landed the dream job. High-paid advertising copywriter. Big office. Big apartment in New York. Glamorous parties and glamorous backdrop. All feeding the urban sophisticate narrative etc. All good.

The trouble was, even though I was being paid very well, I was still broke by the end of the month. Life is New York was expensive, and I was determined to experience it fully. I sure as hell wasn't saving anything.

Like they say, education is expensive. And I ended up paying top dollar.

Because of course, one day the recession hit, the job dried up and I nearly found myself on the street. Had I lived a bit more modestly I would have been able to weather the storm better.

There are a lot of people out there who, like me back in New York, make a lot of money, but spend it just as quickly. The older you get, the less you envy them. Sure, they get to go to the fancy restaurants five days a week, but they pay heavily for the privilege. They can't afford to tell their bosses to go take a hike. They can't afford to not panic, when business slows down for a month or two.

Part of being creative is learning how to protect your freedom. That includes freedom from avarice.


MacLeod, Hugh (8/22/2004). How to be Creative. Gapingvoid. http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/000932.html

A Picasso always looks like Piccasso painted it. Hemingway always sounds like Hemingway. A Beethoven Symphony always sounds like a Beethoven's Syynphony. Part of being a Master is learning how to sing in nobody else's voice but your own.


MacLeod, Hugh (8/22/2004). How to be Creative. Gapingvoid. http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/000932.html

Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten.

Then when you hit puberty they take the crayons away and replace them with books on algebra etc. Being suddenly hit years later with the creative bug is just a wee voice telling you, "I'd like my crayons back, please."


MacLeod, Hugh (8/22/2004). How to be Creative. Gapingvoid. http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/000932.html