Josh Reviews Dear Mr. Watterson
The materials for Joel Allen Schroeder’s film Dear Mr. Watterson describe it as “a documentary film about the impact of the best comic strip in the history of the universe.” That’s a funny line, but also accurate, as I do believe that Bill Watterson’s Calvin & Hobbes is probably the finest comic strip that I have ever read.
I first discovered Calvin & Hobbes years ago, when my parents bought me Something Under the Bed is Drooling, the first Calvin & Hobbes collection. I am not sure how they knew about Calvin & Hobbes — the strip was in its early days; I believe at the time there were only two collections available, maybe three — but I applaud and am grateful for their good taste.
Like millions of readers worldwide, I was immediately hooked, and for the decade that followed I read Calvin & Hobbes religiously in the paper, cutting out and saving my favorite strips, while also of course collecting the book-sized collections every year-or-so when they were published. The quality of Mr. Watterson’s writing and his artwork were both unparalleled, and together, as every fan knows, they were magic. Motion Pictures exists because of Bill Watterson and Calvin & Hobbes, and I know that many, many, many more of today’s syndicated comic strips and web-comics are similarly the result of the influence of Mr. Watterson’s brilliant cartoon.
All of which is a long-winded way of saying that when I read about Dear Mr. Watterson, a documentary about Calvin & Hobbes, I was interested.
Joel Allen Schroeder’s film is a sweet love-letter from a super-fan to the maker of his favorite comic strip. The film, though, is far from revelatory when it comes to the story of Mr. Watterson himself or the Calvin & Hobbes comic strip. I was hoping for more of an exploration of Mr. Watterson’s life and career, and how it was that he developed this extraordinary comic strip. But the film is very superficial in that respect, and it doesn’t tell us anything that I’d wager even a fairly casual fan of the strip wouldn’t know. (There’s a whole bit in which Mr. Schroeder goes to look at some original Calvin & Hobbes cartoons, and is amazed that they were drawn larger than the final printed panels appeared in the newspaper. Well duh! I know I’m an artist, but surely most people know that the original comics are drawn larger than they are printed, right? I was rolling my eyes at that. Don’t go into this film expecting revelations any deeper than that.)
I tend to enjoy documentaries in which the documentarian is a part of the story of the film, but in this documentary I felt the focus was too much on Mr. Schroeder and not enough on Bill Watterson. Mr. Schroeder seems like a nice enough fellow and a genuine fan, but he admits at the beginning to not being much of an expert on comic strips in general. He’s just someone who really likes Calvin and Hobbes. That unfortunately is the level at which the film remains for much of its run-time. Hearing from lots of other non-famous Calvin & Hobbes fans, who tell of their love of the strip and its impact on them, is fun, but I found that got old fairly quickly.
The film is far more successful when it brings in people who actually know something about comic strips. I loved the interview segments with Bloom County creator Berke Breathed, for example. His comments were fascinating (particularly when he compared and contrasted Calvin & Hobbes to Bloom County) and I would leave loved to have heard more from him. Hearing other working cartoonists discuss Calvin & Hobbes was also endlessly fascinating and also, to me, very inspirational. Those parts of the film were great.
I also enjoyed hearing from Looking for Calvin & Hobbes author Nevin Martell. He was well-spoken and had a lot to contribute. But while those interview segments were strong, they highlight the weakness of this film for me. Mr. Martell did a lot of work to write his book, and is someone who appears very knowledgeable about comic strips in general and Calvin & Hobbes in specific. But it feels like Mr. Schroeder, rather than doing the research himself, just brought in someone else (Mr. Martell) who had. It feels a little lazy to me. (Click here for my review of Mr. Martell’s book, Looking for Calvin & Hobbes.)
But maybe it’s just that Mr. Schroeder had set out to make a different film than the one I was looking for. He clearly wasn’t all that interested in making a biography of Mr. Watterson, or in exploring the details of how the strip came to be and the many challenges that Mr. Watterson had to face in bringing his vision to life. As it says in the description of the film that I quoted above, Mr. Schroeder wanted instead to explore the IMPACT of the strip, and it seems that he was most interested in seeing that impact on every-day people just like him.
This results in a film that is less interesting for a hard-core fan and illustrator like myself. But it’s certainly a warm, loving look at a wonderful comic strip, and a potent reminder of the enduring power of Calvin & Hobbes, the best comic strip in the history of the universe.