Dear Mr. Watterson: An Independent

An Independent Calvin and Hobbes Documentary


I picked out this film simply because of what IMDB said about it. "A documentary about the impact of the newspaper comic strip Calvin & Hobbes, created by Bill Watterson.

Let me be the first one to say that I read that completely wrong and I was, at first, shocked to see that the reclusive Bill Watterson made a documentary about his work. Well, in looking at that sentence again, you can see what it actually is saying.

As for the documentary.... I have to say, I thought it was a little boring. I'd rather see an actual interview with Watterson than have Seth Green tell me how much Calvin & Hobbes meant to me when I was a kid. I know that Watterson doesn't do interviews because he seems to think he's the JD Salinger of this generation and comic strips.

But then again, he kinda has the right to do whatever he wants since he's a human being and, well, he did do a lot of creative work that did affect my childhood. I don't blame him for being reclusive and calling the cops on unwanted guest who keep trying to bug him.

The problem is that without Watterson's participation, this just sounds like two hours of people fawning over comic they read and liked 20 years ago.... but even then, it's not even that. A lot of it feels like it's about the kids who grew up reading the compilation books their parents undoubtedly foisted on them in the hope that their special little angel would turn into their own little Calvin. Which does make me wonder why? I mean, Calvin was a consistent pain in the ass, so it begs to question why any parent would want their child to be like that? Probably because people who procreate are fucking idiots by definition.

But yeah, as a kid who read these originally in the daily comics as well as in the Sunday paper. I have all the books - hell, I got most of them as they were coming out. But it just seems that this documentary was pretty short in coming up on paying tribute to a childhood memory.