[dropcap]C[/dropcap]alvin & Hobbes, without argument or even much discussion, is the best comic strip ever. Now, more than 10 years following the last glorious pane of the spike haired kid with the most vivid of imaginations and his kind-of-stuffed tiger, a documentary film: Dear Mr. Watterson: An exploration of Calvin & Hobbes.
From the website:
Calvin & Hobbes dominated the Sunday comics in thousands of newspapers for over 10 years, having a profound effect on millions of readers across the globe. When the strip’s creator, Bill Watterson, retired the strip on New Year’s Eve in 1995, devoted readers everywhere felt the void left by the departure of Calvin, Hobbes, and Watterson’s other cast of characters, and many fans would never find a satisfactory replacement.
It has now been more than a decade since the end of the Calvin & Hobbes era. Bill Watterson has kept an extremely low profile during this time, living a very private life outside of Cleveland, Ohio. Despite his quiet lifestyle, Mr. Watterson is remembered and appreciated daily by fans who still enjoy his amazing collection of work.
Mr. Watterson has inspired and influenced millions of people through Calvin & Hobbes. Newspaper readership and book sales can be tracked and recorded, but the human impact he has had and the value of his art are perhaps impossible to measure.
This film is not a quest to find Bill Watterson, or to invade his privacy. It is an exploration to discover why his ‘simple’ comic strip made such an impact on so many readers in the 80s and 90s, and why it still means so much to us today.
Filmmakers interviewed fans of Calvin & Hobbes, cartoonists and industry professionals. Among those interviewed: Berke Breathed (Bloom County), Lee Salem (United Press Syndicate), Stephan Pastis (Pearls Before Swine), Jef Mallett (Frazz), Seth Green, Keith Knight (The K Chronicles), Jenny Robb, Jan Eliot (Stone Soup), and Bill Amend (Foxtrot).
Check out the excellent trailer below for Dear Mr. Watterson, the Calvin & Hobbes documentary, opening nationwide November 15, 2013.
I will be there.
Dear Mr. Watterson Teaser Trailer from Dear Mr. Watterson on Vimeo.
