#bill watterson was a genius

[tuttle-did-it]

Rightly so.

[kurasutaa]

if theres one thing to know about me is that love calvin and hobbes with a burning passion

[leonardcohenofficial]

was tagged by @privatejoker to post nine books to read in 2025—many thanks!

absalom, absalom! by william faulkner beware of the bull: the enigmantic genius of jake thackray by paul thompson and john watterson the women's house of detention by hugh ryan white horse by erika t. wurth cold nights of childhood by tezer özlü (trans. maureen freely) what we don't talk about when we talk about fat by aubrey gordon open water by caleb azumah nelson my annihilation by fuminori nakamura (trans. sam bett) finally got the news! the printed legacy of the u.s. radical left, 1970-1979 edited by brad duncan

i'll tag @lesbiancolumbo / @edwardalbee / @draftdodgerag / @bill-blake-fans-anonymous / @sivavakkiyar / @deadpanwalking and anyone else who'd like to do this! ✨

[swede1952]

Good morning. 🌤️⛅🌥️

13 October 2023

When I was a kid, I loved comic books, back then comic books cost a dime. I liked all of the DC comics, Superman, Batman, the Flash, etc. But my favorite comic was Dennis the Menace. I thought that they were lost over the years until my mother passed over 20 years ago. Then … there they were. We were in Wyoming, and she had all of that stuff. I didn't take all of those comic books except for one to represent all of the rest. I picked one at random, put it in plastic and still have it today.

Later in life, Calvin and Hobbes replaced Dennis the Menace as my favorite. I think the comic was genius and was disappointed when Bill Waterson stopped writing new ones.

“The world isn't fair, Calvin." "I know Dad, but why isn't it ever unfair in my favor?” - Bill Watterson, The Essential Calvin and Hobbes: A Calvin and Hobbes Treasury

[accessiblecalvinhobbes]

1 Panel Comic - Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson. Calvin is a young boy often in a striped shirt. He has an imaginary tiger friend named Hobbes. When Calvin is along Hobbes is a tiger who stands on his hind feet and talks only to Calvin. Others see Hobbes as a stuffed tiger toy that Calvin carries with him. Calvin is walking with Hobbes away from the viewer. Calvin says "People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world." Hobbes looks over at him and says "Isn't your pants zipper supposed to be in the front?"

[saidesignart]

Genius is never understood in its own time.

— Bill Watterson

[arun-pratap-singh]

CALVIN AND HOBBES Creator Bill Watterson is Developing an Illustrated "Fable For Grown-Ups" THE MYSTERIES — GeekTyrant

We’ve got some exciting news for all of you Calvin and Hobbes fans! Bill Watterson, the genius behind the beloved comic strip, is back in the publishing world after years of staying low and he’s teaming up with caricature artist John Kascht to bring us a “fable for grown-ups” called The Mysteries. Publisher Simon & Schuster describes the book as a “mysterious and beautifully illustrated fable…

[jaydove-writes]

Bill Watterson was/is (IDK his relationship with death) a genius

more people would exercise if this culture didn't make it absolute hell

[sealbro]

Weekly sketches 12/18/21

ig/twitter: @_sealbro

[gojifan97]

oh I am feeling this one right now!

[chelsdavisart]

bless u ryneus

This is after Wren carried her boy back to Ark and moved him into her cozy lil home. They’re on their way to gather flowers in the heartland. This is canon and I will accept no criticism.

[shhhhimwatchingthis]

Feel like it's disingenuous not to add that while he is responsible for the elimination of of the 'standard Sunday strip panel' and revolutionized his industry and art form by pushing for quite literally, 'outside the box thinking' it wasn't just handed or given to him

Bill Watterson fought tooth and nail for the right to draw Calvin and Hobbes the way he wanted and he lost a lot. It exhausted him. He dealt with genuine mental health struggles and breakdowns as a result of the way newspapers treated him and his art.

like yes the above is true, but framing him as some genius who was respected and loved and waved his hands and got what he wanted is not. he struggled a lot, and while NOW he's beloved and regarded as a genius and master of his craft he was not treated that way by his employers and its disingenuous not to acknowledge how brutally hard he had to fight to make Calvin and Hobbes what it is.

Calvin and Hobbes is one of the greatest peices of art I've ever read. Bill Watterson is a genius and created a genuine masterpiece. The conditions in which he was forced to work legitimately damaged his mental health, effected his passion for the work and eventually resulted in him stopping both Calvin and Hobbes and writing comics at all.

I thinks folks expressing incredulity at the quality of the writing and composition in Calvin and Hobbes are often missing the context that Bill Watterson is arguably the most influential sequential artist of his generation. Like, this is a guy who once told the editors of nationally syndicated newspapers to go fuck themselves when they wanted to mess with his panel layouts, and not only did he keep his job, he got his way. He could have had literally any gig he wanted, and he chose to be the Sunday funnies guy because that's what made him happy. He's basically the Weird Al of sequential art.

[cookiefonster]

calvin and hobbes is so wonderfully timeless. whenever i read it, i almost NEVER think "yeah this was something made in the 80s/90s", except the occasion where they mention computers, and it's full of commentary on life applicable just as much in 2022 as it was back then. bill watterson is a genius and the comic feels like his way of exerting his inner child

[ellaofoakhill]

Just found this on alligator-sunglasses.com. Arguably my favourite calvin and hobbes comic of all time.

[vicshush]

My family is mad crafty. My mum and sister have been making winter holiday gifts for over 100 people annually for probably close to or over a couple decades, at least. For the past 10-15 years, they've done variants on snowmen. The snowmanta ray, snowmanatee, and snowman o' war were genius, the abominable snowman is the all-time favorite, and we even had Bill Watterson-style melting snowmen doomsday prophets, predicting that 'Spring is Nigh!!'

This year, they made snowman candles (mostly out of emergency or Hanukkah white candles, but my sister ran out and made thin birthday cake candles work, too).

[ID : Five snowmen with white candle wicks rising from their heads stand in a row on a counter. They have round black eyes, black, posable wire stick arms with three fingers apiece, and orange noses made of wrapped wire. The three snowmen in the middle are attempting "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" poses. /end ID]

I helped a little, so I can report that the eye-affixing process involves heating a nail on a flame, pressing it into the wax, then popping the bead into the divot. The heated nail carbonizes, turning black, which it transfers to the wax. In-progress snowmen look like they were wearing heavy mascara that has run, badly. Very emo. I joked that my sister could make me a The Crow-man snowman. She ended up making something a bit more metal than goth, so I named it KISS-kiss. I loves him.

[ID : Two photos of a snowman candle with black streaks winging back from the eyes, a blackened wrapped wire nose, black wire arms, a silver wire choker with black twists of metal hanging from it, a thick silver wire bracelet, and, over the left arm, a 'broken heart' 'tattoo' in black wire, visible under a layer or two of wax. /end ID]

[siryouarebeingmocked]

Like Max Payne, some of the most iconic noir lines are from a Noir parody/pastiche. One by Bill Watterson, the other by a Finn (and also Rockstar).

“I don't know about angels, but it's fear that gives men wings.” “The past is like pieces of a broken mirror, you try to pick them up, but you only end up cutting yourself.” "The genius of the hole: no matter how long you spend climbing out, you can still fall back down in an instant." "The way I see it there's two types of people, those who spend their lives trying to build a future and those who spend their lives trying to rebuild the past." "Another dark rainy night, another police station, another futile crusade for amends. Time moves foward, nothing changes."

Also, the answer is "15". I know, because I worked it out when I first saw the strip in high school. Did I mention I was in the advanced math class? I'd also like to mention Black Jack Justice, on general principles, which also used the "X a day, plus expenses." Dashiell Hammett reference. Lots of witty banter.