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    Looking for Calvin and Hobbes: The Unconventional Story of Bill Watterson and his Revolutionary Comic Strip
    Looking for Calvin and Hobbes: The Unconventional Story of Bill Watterson and his Revolutionary Comic Strip
    Looking for Calvin and Hobbes: The Unconventional Story of Bill Watterson and his Revolutionary Comic Strip
    Audiobook7 hours

    Looking for Calvin and Hobbes: The Unconventional Story of Bill Watterson and his Revolutionary Comic Strip

    Written by Nevin Martell

    Narrated by Jeremy Arthur

    3/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    After one of the world’s most loved comic strips, Calvin and Hobbes, ended in 1995, Author Nevin Martell was desperate to know more about its creator, Bill Watterson. But Watterson didn’t just end the comic, he withdrew from public life entirely. Martell’s odyssey to understand Watterson is detailed and personal.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLantern Audio
    Release dateNov 13, 2014
    ISBN9781942248224
    Looking for Calvin and Hobbes: The Unconventional Story of Bill Watterson and his Revolutionary Comic Strip
    Author

    Nevin Martell

    Nevin Martell worked in new media at Atlantic Records in New York after graduating from Vassar College. His work has appeared in Ray Gun, High Times, and many online 'zines. He lives in Manhattan and writes full time. He can be e-mailed at mftp@earthlink.net.

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    Reviews for Looking for Calvin and Hobbes

    3/5

    62 ratings10 reviews

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    • 2/5
      Lack of graphics hurt the book. It's disappointing, for example, for the author to discuss a mascot Watterson created in school that might have things in common with Hobbes, without including a graphic so the reader can judge too.
    • 3/5
      "Looking for Calvin and Hobbes" is a biography of Bill Watterson, the creator of the renowned Calvin Hobbes comics strip that ran in newspapers across the world during the 80s and 90s. In it, Martell takes on the formidable task of piecing together clues about the reclusive artist's life.A quick note to Watterson fans: Martell never does get a direct interview with Watterson. But he does do everything but, by talking to close friends, classmates and associates of Watterson's.Martell approaches his task with respect for the artist's wish for privacy, and as a self-admitted fan of the strip. As such, "Looking for Calvin and Hobbes" sometimes reads more like an appreciation of Bill Watterson and Calvin and Hobbes than a biography. But as any Calvin and Hobbes fan knows, to do otherwise would have been disrepectful to the artist and his work.
    • 3/5
      3.5 For once in my life I was in on a trend early -- that was Calvin and Hobbes. This book is a total fan-boy attempt to uncover the elusive Watterson, and hero worship aside, the author does a pretty good job of connecting the dots, considering the main goal, the man himself is missing. Martell's paean has made me want to dig out my C&H collection, which I have since passed on to my sons and re-read and luxuriate in the hilarious adventures of the boy and his tiger. What Martell has also made me appreciate more is Watterson's artistic talent, which I believe I took entirely for granted. This thorough book has used as many resources as possible (interviews with other cartoonists & Watterson's mother, a trip to his home town, hundreds of newspapers and books) and any other minuscule clues Martell could uncover about this man who decidedly does not want to be found or engaged on the topic of C&H or any other. I admire Watterson's integrity regarding his art and creative process, but (still) mourn the loss of a great comic strip that dominated the "funnies" and set a near-impossible standard for anything that came after. One interviewee, Patton Oswalt summed it up well: "Watterson reminded you that imagination was more powerful than despair....He wanted to remind you that there's always wonder out there." (185)
    • 4/5
      I’ve been a comic strip reader as long as I can remember, starting with all the classics of the 1950s when I was just a kid. At some point in the eighties, my taste in comics switched over to those strips with more sophisticated artwork, or the ones that addressed my more adult concerns. But really, it was always about cartoonists who could actually make me laugh out loud on a regular basis. So, for years, my favorite comic strips were Dilbert, The Far Side, and Calvin and Hobbes. Sadly for many of us, the cartoonists responsible for both The Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes shut the strips down way before fans were ready to see that happen. I grieve the loss of those two strips to this day. Dilbert, on the other hand, is still out there, having long outlived the period in my life during which I actually read a daily newspaper.Looking for Calvin and Hobbes: The Unconventional Story of Bill Watterson and His Revolutionary Comic Strip was written by superfan Nevin Martell and published in late 2009. I recently watched a documentary in which Martell explored Bill Watterson’s decision to disappear from public view. That’s, in fact, how I became aware of Martell’s book. When he began the book, Martell still hoped that he would be able to convince Watterson to give him an interview that he could use to close it out. But Watterson, being the recluse that he still is, never responded to the author’s letter or attempts to reach him through third-party friends or business associates. Still, Martell does manage to end the book in an interesting way by visiting Chagrin Falls, Ohio, Watterson’s hometown, where he managed to snag a rather pleasant interview with the cartoonist’s mother.Calvin and Hobbes was a daily comic strip for ten years if you count the two nine-month periods in the nineties during which Watterson took much needed sabbaticals from the grind and pressure of producing a comic strip under such tight deadlines. The strip went into rerun mode during those eighteen months. Then, in October 1995, Watterson ended the strip for good. And he never looked back. Bill Watterson hates fame; he wants absolutely no part of it, even refusing to let his cartoon characters be licensed for sale as stuffed animals, dolls, toy figures, or anything else. That decision caused him and his syndicator millions and millions of dollars over time, but Watterson never wavered in his determination to keep the strip pure to his vision. Bill Watterson accomplished more with his 3,160 comic strips than most other cartoonists can only dream about. He greatly influenced his cartoonist contemporaries - setting such a high bar that he probably made his competitors better than they would have been without him - and the generation of cartoonists who followed him. But he was such a private man, that it is hard to find anyone except for perhaps his friends from high school and college who can claim to really know the man. Watterson’s reclusive lifestyle makes J.D. Salinger’s look like that of a carnival husker in comparison. Martell sums of Watterson’s impact on the world this way:“Even though Watterson hadn’t set out to create something with mass appeal, Calvin and Hobbes did ultimately attract an audience that was without age limits or cultural boundaries. It was universally understandable without becoming meaningless or trite. It’s attractiveness never detracted from its artistry or depth. In that way, the strip was the ultimate piece of pop art.”I couldn’t agree with him more. Bill Watterson has a very rare talent, and it’s a terrible shame that he didn’t share it with us longer than he did.
    • 2/5
      Mediocre writing on a compelling topic. It was amusing to learn some of the stories tangential to the education of a comic strip genius, but the activity of Watterson's cartooning remains, necessarily, untouched and untouchable. Bill Watterson preserves his integrity and allure as an artist in this study of everything that went on around him; in the cultural tornado that swirled around Calvin and Hobbes, Watterson remains the unknowable eye.
    • 3/5
      This wasn't a crisp read. It wasn't a symphony. There were a lot of discordant notes, a lot of extraneous material that tripped me up when I just wanted to hang on to Nevin's subject: Bill Watterson and his brilliant strip.His subject is what kept me reading. It was a pleasant trip back to consider that special magic that Calvin and Hobbes held. Sure, that trip's lens was smudged with Nevin's own perspective, perhaps too much, sometimes, but that's his prerogative, because it's his book. Did *I* get to write the story of Bill Watterson? No, Nevin did. And, if for nothing else, it was worth the time spent reflecting on the career and talents Mr. Watterson for a few hours. Thanks, Nevin, for getting us up off the couch for the jog down memory lane.
    • 2/5
      I liked this book because it reminded me of everything I loved about Calvin and Hobbes - the characters, the stories, and the imagination! Remembering the baby raccoon story line was a tender lub dub in my heart! I liked reading more about Bill Watterson and his reluctance to license his creation and the purity of his work that has resulted from this decision! I didn't like that the book relied so much on already published material to get Watterson's "quotes". (by published material, I mean the published collections of C & H that Watterson himself wrote material for!)POSSIBLE SPOILERS: I also didn't like that the ending interview with Watterson's mom was so anti-climatic and really without substance. And I hated that the author never sat with the the man himself! Without that, the book felt a little like a cheat. The lack of any pictures or illustrations was a major let down too.
    • 2/5
      Blogger Nevin Martell went looking for the subject of his book and didn't find it, and I'm not playing on words here. He spends the entire time trying to get an exclusive interview with the reclusive Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson, and never gets it. Instead we get a rambling journal of feelings and doubts from the author. This mess of a result doesn't make Watterson any more mysterious, it means this book shouldn't have been published.
    • 2/5
      It's too bad. The author did some of the footwork for an informative work, but he doesn't know what's important, and he doesn't know how to write. A book like this without copious illustration is a loss.
    • 4/5
      I had a guilty mix of feelings about purchasing and reading this book, the author's attempt to get into the mind of the reclusive Bill Watterson, the creator of the retired comic strip "Calvin and Hobbes". The strip has always been one of my favorites, and I was as stunned and saddened as anybody when Watterson retired his strip after ten wonderful years. Later I learned about Watterson's reasons for his choices to eschew the money that merchandising the strip would have brought him, and the fame that was his due and penance for his work. And I respected the man even more. But when I saw this book, in which the author seeks to learn everything he can about Watterson, my morbid curiosity won out, and I bought the book with a feeling similar, I suspect, to the one I would have if I bought "The National Enquirer". That said, the author does seek to maintain a respectful distance, and accepts Watterson's choice not to interview with him. He does achieve the next best thing, an interview with Watterson's mother. There's really not a lot here I didn't already know, but it was interesting. I understand why there are no reproductions of any "Calvin and Hobbes" strips here, but I wonder if it was copyright law or respect for the author that resulted in the absence of any of Watterson's other artwork, or any photographs save the one of Watterson on the back jacket.