This book, the first volume of a three-volume hardback collection (this) of a newspaper comic called Calvin & Hobbes,* by Bill Watterson - I have been nibbling on it over the last month, as something familiar and beautiful for my comfort reading while I commence work on another inevitably-bleak essay on the political economy of the environment.
Since there are another two volumes to go before I've properly "finished" reading the full collection, I'll save up all my proper thoughts and reflections (of which there will be a lot: this is an utterly fantastic comic strip, possibly the greatest of all time, certainly to my mind, for the quality of writership and pen/brushwork, conceptual depth yet childlike accessibility, sheer adventurous joy - and it's also one that I've known and loved since I first encountered it as a nine-year old, but have never read through the full collection, so I'd like to let my words stew awhile as I ingest the other two volumes) for my post about the third volume. Nevertheless, they are separate books, so warrant separate posts.
Cool? Cool.
One thing I will add about this one though is that the first volume comes with a longish introduction from Bill Watterson about the comic as a project - an unexpected success that blossomed with artistic possibility that he took full advantage of in ways no other newspaper comic artist I can name off the top of my head (except Charles Schulz? - no, Bill trumps here) had ever done before and which few have probably tried to do since; his work developed a readership that both deeply touched and connected with the comic, again, not what you'd usually expect from the daily funnies. His telling of how he, having surprised himself at landing such a successful project, tried to make it the best comic he could make, was of immense encouragement and inspiration to me reading it as I am now; the craftsman of one of my oldest cultural loves offering up a straightforward and honest story of struggle and joy and finding fulfilling work in art - which is what, at the end of 2016, I've come to realise I want to do. I've mentioned in previous posts that my excuse** for barely having read anything since a family holiday in early August has been that most of the leisure time I usually direct into reading has gone into writing - and this is still the case, to such an extent that completing this project is now my primary goal for the next few years. I'll be finishing my Masters of Arts (which ironically prepares me very little for an actual career as an artist, those tending to be fairly stereotypically shambolic) over summer 2017, find a non-committal job to pay the bills, and then spend my mid-twenties writing a series of novels**** that I've been planning extensively since around May. Frankly the organicness with which this project has replaced my previous ambitions is deliciously welcome - and so inspiration from masters of the arts, like my much-esteemed Bill Watterson, has been great soul food for me this last fortnight. And I'm sure the next two volumes can only deepen that.
So, thanks for reading this year, it's been an odd year all round - happy end of 2016.
* If you've never heard of it - it's about a six-year old boy called Calvin with an extremely active imagination and a real-only-to-him best friend in the form of a stuffed tiger called Hobbes; the pair's playfulness drops them into regular trouble, as the immensity and constancy of a child's imagination rubs up against the disappointing mundanity of a child's actual life (leading to many a clash of worlds - with long-suffering mom and dad, the teacher, the sensible girl next-door, the school bully, and the only babysitter in town who has the patience for Calvin's antics). The strips are infused through-and-through with altered realities - earthquakes, dinosaurs, monsters, detectives, fearless space-faring heroes, you name it - as Calvin's imagination runs away with him, Hobbes close behind.
It was first syndicated in 1985, and by the time Watterson felt his brilliant characters had told all they could and he had achieved his artistic vision as a comic writer/drawer, this uniquely-charming childhood-nostalgia-heavy perfect lovely little strip was going out daily in over 2400 newspapers - until its final strip on January 1st 1996. Lots of them are online for free (see), and while the complete collection is a heavy investment, these books are ones that will stay somewhere on my shelves for the rest of my life. I cannot recommend this comic highly enough. Keep your eyes peeled in charity shops - you can often pick up smaller books collecting C&H strips for a few quid/bucks (in the UK and presumably USA too - dunno how internationally-loved it is). They work extremely well in book form, as unlike most newspaper comic-writers, Watterson frequently embarks on narratives that span several 'weeks' - each individual strip amusing and often surprisingly poignant, the longer stories truly delightful.
** Well, one of them. I also made the mistake of taking on a full-time seven-week research assistance*** position in which I was wayyy out of my depth and that was stressful and huge and certainly not conducive to my quasi-normal quasi-healthy habits of time management. It may have been this that led to my decisiveness in aiming for a break in academia and flying after creative pursuits.
*** Don't ask what it was in.
**** Yup. There's eight of them. They're sort of a series, but each readable as a standalone story, with books varying in tone, topic, and genre, following the same three characters (Amina Nadir, John Ezekiel Smith, and Naomi Moss) over about sixteen years. Lots of things happen to these three. I won't ever put any of my draft material or even outlines of plans up on this blog, but I will give a slightly more in-depth description of the general broad thrust of the project (basically just to fish for volunteers to offer constructive criticism) in my 2016 recap post,***** which you can expect in about a week probably - I'm off to London for NYE and staying for a few days. Without laptop. As true holiday time should be.
***** You know, the thing where I go back and think about some of the best things I've read in a year, or have other thoughts, or make cheesily over-enthusiastic statements about the joy of books. See last year's.
