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| The first published Calvin & Hobbes strip, November 18, 1985 © Bill Watterson (The Complete Calvin & Hobbes 22) |
Disclaimer: This website is an academic project for English 344: Survey of American Literature II at Eastern Washington University. The opinions expressed in this project are the author's own and do not reflect the views of Eastern Washington University.
Introduction
Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes is an expression of his artistic genius. His ability to translate his life experience and social commentary into a series of comic strips so incredibly successful that fifteen years after it ceased daily publication the strip still sold half a million books annually and by 2010 had total revenue nearing $45 million. (Campanelli) Critics often point to the lack of licensing as a demand driver. However, there is much more to Calvin and Hobbes appeal than scarcity. Bill Watterson was able to strike a nerve with millions of readers and create a following that is still rabid even after twenty-five years. The strip has been out of daily newspapers and hasn’t had any new material published in nearly three times as long as it was a syndicated daily. Bill Watterson’s ability to channel his own imagination and create characters that appealed to a wide audience is part of his success, but the larger contributor is his ability to capture and cultivate the imagination of his audience through very deliberate and inspired choices in his artwork, control of the strip, and in the stories he told.
The discussion of poetic, and in this case artistic, genius is not new. Creators have, for hundreds—if not thousands—of years, wrestled with how the imagination works on us. Imagination is central to creativity and poets, prose writers and artists of all varieties have discussed the value of imagination, the role it plays in the creative process, and how to cultivate imagination to generate ideas. Samuel Taylor Coleridge asserted that the imagination is the living power and prime agent of all human perception, and as a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creating in the infinite I AM.” (Coleridge 496) The infinite I Am represents the state of human existence and the divine power of creation all as one. Therefore, when a poet or artist creates, he is participating in divine creation. Shelley took this assertion a step further; according to Shelley, “reason is to imagination as the instrument to the agent … poetry is the expression of the imagination” and is divine. (Shelley 871) According to Shelley, “reason is to imagination as the instrument to the agent … poetry is the expression of the imagination” and is divine. (Shelley 871) While both poets attribute a portion of imaginative power as divine, Shelley goes so far as to say that poets and artists are mere vessels or instruments, “trumpets which sing” the divine power and share its moral truths and greatness with mankind. (Shelley 883). Bill Watterson, may have touched on a bit of both poet’s assertions on imaginative power.
Waterson frequently references the role of imagination in interviews and in his writing about Calvin and Hobbes. It is apparent that his goal, whether explicitly articulated or not, that when creating Calvin and Hobbes, he is not only working to demonstrate the imagination of his six-year-old character, he is also expressing his own imagination and drawing heavily on the imaginative powers of his audience. Calvin’s antics, whether they include the creative use of a cardboard box as one of a number of transformative machines, his interactions with Hobbes, his transformations into a Tyrannosaurus Rex, the obliteration of sand-castle villages on the beach, or in one of his many alter egos such as Spaceman Spiff originate in his imagination and also co-opt the imaginative power of the reader. The way Watterson illustrates the strip and the events that happen within it, also invite the reader to imagine it as the scene plays out. Watterson often illustrates only what is necessary—he leaves out background details and focuses only on the expressive elements of the story that needs to be told. The storytelling itself, is an imaginative trigger. Watterson deliberately avoids closure. Everything in the strip is a vignette that closure. Everything in the strip is a vignette that can be reread repeatedly because there is never a definitive ending. Even the final strip, published December 31, 1995, is a beginning: Calvin and Hobbes go exploring. This lack of closure serves less as an ending and more as an invitation to revisit the adventures of Calvin and Hobbes. The reader when confronted with this ending doesn’t mourn the end of a story being told. Instead, the reader imagines what Calvin and Hobbes may explore next and is thus invited to go exploring as well. The imagination is triggered anew and “the text remains open, always for further exploration.” (Heit 29) Watterson's choices are deliberate and calculated as well as inspired. His decision to refuse very lucrative licensing offers has less to do with creating scarcity than it does with maintaining creative control. If Watterson had licensed Calvin and Hobbes and the deal generated an animated film, someone would have had to voice Calvin and Hobbes. That act would have shattered the imaginative freedom of every reader through forever adding "an actors voice" to Watterson's characters. It would have robbed readers of an opportunity to imagine it for themselves. (Tenth 11)