My Review of the DVD "Dear Mr. Watterson," and a Rare Look at Some of My Own Personal Artwork from the Past

On Christmas day, I purchased a DVD bundle with my Christmas bonus money, called "Dear Mr. Watterson."  It is a documentary about how various fans and cartoonists were affected by the classic syndicated comic "Calvin & Hobbes."  I started to worry after a few weeks when my DVD had not arrived in the mail.  I mostly order things from Amazon, and those items ship real quick.  The DVD, "Dear Mr. Watterson," was a purchase from another online company.  I was beginning to think I got ripped off, when, suddenly, my stuff arrived last Thursday!  I was so excited!

I was not disappointed, either.  The documentary has several cartoonists I admire, expressing their opinions and some of their interactions on the very private Bill Watterson, who drew and wrote the legendary comic strip.  I did not always agree with some of their opinions, but it was nice to hear them, nevertheless.  A few of them showed how they they get inspired to draw their own strips.  I found that particularly fascinating.  Being someone who has studied art particularly in the field of cartooning, and read every syndicated comic in our paper since I was very young, to the point I was having to ask my parents what certain words meant, I may have found the documentary more interesting than others.

There was a time when I did publish some of my own cartoons for a brief while.  It was for a newsletter about sheep.  Many of those particular cartoons have been compared to Gary Larson who drew "The Far Side."

I guess if sheep are standing and talking, then Gary Larson is the first person they think of.  I may have been a little influenced by him, but Sandra Boynton also drew standing and talking animals before before I discovered Gary Larson in the comic pages, so I feel like my influence was more from her, at least to begin with.  Peanuts influenced me as well, being my first absolute favorite of the comics.

In college, I would look at Bill Watterson's work to figure out how to adapt some of the facial expressions to my work.  I think I may have read somewhere that he would make faces in the mirror to capture an expression... or that could have been some other cartoonist I read about, that said that.  It was a long time ago.  I found that the advice helped.

There were a number of occasions I would take my work to Kinko's, for an art project for school, and they would almost not copy my work for me because they thought it was not my original artwork!  They thought I was in copyright violation of my own drawings!  I would pull out my I.D. to show them that I indeed was the illustrator to my own signed work, and then they would then make the copies.  One of the workers compared my artwork to South Park.  I had not heard or even seen any of that cartoon at the time.  I think I even asked, "What's that?"

In the "Dear Mr. Watterson" documentary, cartoonists talk about some of the challenges that come up when writing and merchandising their strips.  Merchandising sounds like a particular nightmare.  I can definitely understand why Mr. Watterson would not want to merchandise his product for the most part.  He did merchandise his books, obviously, but he also merchandised calendars as well, which featured his comics from the newspapers on a once-a-month glossy page.  I really enjoyed flipping to a new month to see which strip would be featured for the next 28-31 days.

The one thing I wished the documentary had was at least a short interview of Bill Watterson himself.  I am sure everybody would have loved that.  However, the man is a very private person, which I can totally empathize with.  I fondly remember seeing interviews on T.V. from the cartoonist, Charles Schulz (Sparky).  He reminded me of my grandfather.  In some ways, he was like a grandfather to me - just one I was not related to, and never met.  Bill Watterson is more of a mystery.

I am not disappointed that Mr. Watterson wants his privacy.  I think most of us, who are fans of the comic strip, would just like to have an idea of what he is like in real life.  I think "Dear Mr. Watterson" does help satisfy some of the fans curiosity, and I am glad to have it as part of my collection.