Editing Bill Watterson (section)

==Career==

===Early work===
Watterson was inspired by the work of ''[[The Cincinnati Enquirer]]'' [[political cartoonist]] [[Jim Borgman]], a 1976 graduate of Kenyon College, and decided to try to follow the same career path as Borgman, who in turn offered support and encouragement to the aspiring artist. Watterson graduated in 1980 and was hired on a trial basis at the ''[[Cincinnati Post]]'', a competing paper of the ''Enquirer''. Watterson quickly discovered that the job was full of unexpected challenges which prevented him from performing his duties to the standards set for him. Not the least of these challenges was his unfamiliarity with the Cincinnati political scene, as he had never resided in or near the city, having grown up in the [[Cleveland, Ohio|Cleveland]] area and attended college in central Ohio. The ''Post'' fired Watterson before his contract was up.<ref name = "honk">{{Citation | url = http://home3.inet.tele.dk/stadil/interw.htm | publisher = Tele | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20060218193101/http://home3.inet.tele.dk/stadil/interw.htm | archive-date =February 18, 2006 | title= Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin and Hobbes on cartooning, syndicates, Garfield, Charles Schulz, and editors | newspaper = Honk Magazine | issue = 2 | year = 1987 | access-date = March 17, 2006 | first = Andrew | last = Christie}}</ref>

He then joined a small [[advertising agency]] and worked there for four years as a designer, creating grocery advertisements while also working on his own projects, including development of his own cartoon strip and contributions to ''Target: The Political Cartoon Quarterly''.<ref name= "groc">{{Cite book | title = The Complete Calvin and Hobbes | chapter = Introduction| page = 491 | volume = 1 | publisher=Andrew McMeel | author-link = Bill Watterson | isbn = 0-7407-4847-5 | year = 2005 | first =Bill | last = Watterson}}</ref>

As a [[freelance]] artist, Watterson has drawn other works for various merchandise, including album art for his brother's band, calendars, clothing graphics, educational books, magazine covers, posters, and post cards.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://platypuscomix.com/otherpeople/watterson.html|title=Bill Watterson's RAREST!|website=platypuscomix.com|access-date=January 3, 2020|archive-date=January 3, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200103152340/http://platypuscomix.com/otherpeople/watterson.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

===''Calvin and Hobbes'' and rise to success===
Watterson has said that he works for personal fulfillment. As he told the graduating class of 1990 at Kenyon College, "It's surprising how hard we'll work when the work is done just for ourselves." ''Calvin and Hobbes'' was first published on November 18, 1985. In ''Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book'', he wrote that his influences included ''Peanuts'', ''Pogo'', and ''Krazy Kat''.<ref>{{Cite book| last = Watterson| first = Bill|title = Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book| publisher = Andrews and McMeel| year = 1995|page = 21| isbn = 0-8362-0438-7}}</ref> Watterson wrote the introduction to the first volume of ''The Komplete Kolor Krazy Kat''. Watterson's style also reflects the influence of [[Winsor McCay]]'s ''[[Little Nemo|Little Nemo in Slumberland]]''.<ref name="bob">{{cite web|url=http://www.zompist.com/bob8.html|title=Winsor McCay: Little Nemo; Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend|publisher=Bob's Comics Reviews|date=November 1996|access-date=March 15, 2006|archive-date=March 24, 2006|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060324025710/http://www.zompist.com/bob8.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="incr">{{Cite book |chapter-url=http://ignatz.brinkster.net/cslumberland.html| title=The Best of Little Nemo in Slumberland| chapter=An Incredible Ride To the End: An appreciation by Bill Watterson| page=195| publisher=Stewart, Tabori, & Chang| access-date=March 17, 2006| isbn=1-55670-647-2| year=1987| author=Winsor McCay, Richard Marschall| url-status=dead| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051125034527/http://ignatz.brinkster.net/cslumberland.html| archive-date=November 25, 2005 }}</ref>

Like many artists, Watterson incorporated elements of his life, interests, beliefs, and values into his work—for example, his hobby as a [[cyclist]], memories of his own father's speeches about "building character", and his views on [[merchandising]] and [[corporations]].<ref>{{Cite book|last = Watterson| first = Bill|title = Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book| publisher = Andrews and McMeel| year = 1995|page = 173|isbn = 0-8362-0438-7}}</ref> Watterson's cat Sprite very much inspired the personality and physical features of [[Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)|Hobbes]].<ref name="tenth p22">{{Cite book|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=xtiMQXCLdJEC&pg=PA22|last = Watterson|first = Bill|title = Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book|publisher = Andrews and McMeel|year = 1995|page = 22|isbn = 0-8362-0438-7|access-date = January 3, 2020|archive-date = January 15, 2023|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20230115125230/https://books.google.com/books?id=xtiMQXCLdJEC&pg=PA22|url-status = live}}</ref>

Watterson spent much of his career trying to change the climate of newspaper comics. He believed that the artistic value of comics was being undermined and that the space that they occupied in newspapers continually decreased, subject to arbitrary whims of shortsighted publishers. Furthermore, he stated that art should not be judged by the medium for which it is created (i.e., there is no [[High culture|"high" art]] or [[Low culture|"low" art]]—just [[Culture|art]]).<ref name="tenthanniversary">{{Cite book| title=The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book| author=Watterson, Bill
| year=1995| page=208| publisher=Andrews McMeel| isbn=0-8362-0438-7}}</ref>

Watterson wrote a foreword for ''[[FoxTrot]].''<ref>{{cite book |last=Martell|first=Nevin |author-link= |date= August 19, 2010|title= Looking for Calvin and Hobbes: The Unconventional Story of Bill Watterson and His Revolutionary Comic Strip |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=50mEYVVdB1QC |location= |publisher= [[Bloomsbury Academic]]|page= |isbn= 9781441106858}}</ref>

===Fight against merchandising his characters===
For years, Watterson battled against pressure from publishers to merchandise his work, something that he felt would cheapen his comic through compromising the act of creation or reading.<ref name="cheapcomic">{{cite web| url=http://hobbes.ncsa.uiuc.edu/comics.html | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060210115506/http://hobbes.ncsa.uiuc.edu/comics.html | archive-date=February 10, 2006| title=The Cheapening of the Comics| last=Watterson |first= Bill | publisher= Ohio State University| date=October 27, 1989| access-date=March 17, 2006}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Cavna |first=Michael |date=December 31, 2020 |title='Calvin and Hobbes' said goodbye 25 years ago. Here's why Bill Watterson's masterwork enchants us still. |newspaper=The Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2020/12/31/calvin-hobbes-bill-watterson/ |access-date=December 19, 2022 |archive-date=January 28, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220128005105/https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2020/12/31/calvin-hobbes-bill-watterson/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

He refused to merchandise his creations on the grounds that displaying ''Calvin and Hobbes'' images on commercially sold mugs, stickers, and T-shirts would devalue the characters and their personalities. Watterson said that Universal kept putting pressure on him and that he had signed his contract without fully perusing it because, as a new artist, he was happy just to find a syndicate willing to give him a chance (two other syndicates had previously turned him down). He added that the contract was so one-sided that, if Universal really wanted to, they could license his characters against his will, and could even fire him and continue ''Calvin and Hobbes'' with a new artist. Watterson's position eventually won out, and he was able to renegotiate his contract so that he would receive all rights to his work. Later he said that the licensing fight exhausted him and contributed to the need for a nine-month sabbatical in 1991.<ref>{{Cite book| last = Watterson| first = Bill| title = Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book| publisher = Andrews and McMeel| year = 1995| page = 10| isbn = 0-8362-0438-7| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=xtiMQXCLdJEC&pg=PA10| access-date = January 3, 2020| archive-date = January 15, 2023| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20230115125230/https://books.google.com/books?id=xtiMQXCLdJEC&pg=PA10| url-status = live}}</ref>

Despite Watterson's efforts, many unofficial knockoffs have been found, including items that depict Calvin and Hobbes consuming alcohol or Calvin urinating on a logo. Watterson has said, "Only thieves and vandals have made money on ''Calvin and Hobbes'' merchandise."<ref>{{Cite book| last = Watterson| first = Bill| title = Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book| publisher = Andrews and McMeel| year = 1995| page = 12| isbn = 0-8362-0438-7| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=xtiMQXCLdJEC&pg=PA12| access-date = January 3, 2020| archive-date = January 15, 2023| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20230115125230/https://books.google.com/books?id=xtiMQXCLdJEC&pg=PA12| url-status = live}}</ref>

===Changing the format of the Sunday strip===
Watterson was critical of the prevailing format for the [[Sunday strip|Sunday comic strip]] that was in place when he began drawing (and remained so, to varying degrees). The typical layout consists of three rows with eight total squares, which take up half a page if published with its normal size.{{efn|In this context, half-page is an absolute size{{snd}}approximately half a nominal {{convert|8+1/2|x|11|in|cm|adj=on}} [[Letter (paper size)|page size]]{{snd}}and not related to the actual page size on which a cartoon might eventually be printed for distribution.}}<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.wma.us/uploaded/eNotify/ParentAd8.5x11.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://www.wma.us/uploaded/eNotify/ParentAd8.5x11.pdf |archive-date=October 9, 2022 |url-status=live |title=Full Page Ads |website=wma.us |access-date=May 24, 2022}}</ref> Some newspapers are restricted with space for their Sunday features and reduce the size of the strip. One of the more common ways is to cut out the top two panels, which Watterson believed forced him to waste the space on throwaway jokes that did not always fit the strip. 

While he was set to return from his first sabbatical, Watterson discussed with his syndicate a new format for ''Calvin and Hobbes'' that would enable him to use his space more efficiently and would almost require the papers to publish it as a half-page. Universal agreed that they would sell the strip as the half-page and nothing else, which garnered anger from papers and criticism for Watterson from both editors and some of his fellow cartoonists (whom he described as "unnecessarily hot-tempered"). Eventually, Universal compromised and agreed to offer papers a choice between the full half-page or a reduced-sized version to alleviate concerns about the size issue. Watterson conceded that this caused him to lose space in many papers, but he said that, in the end, it was a benefit because he felt that he was giving the papers' readers a better strip for their money and editors were free not to run ''Calvin and Hobbes'' at their own risk. He added that he was not going to apologize for drawing a popular feature.<ref>{{Cite book| last = Watterson| first = Bill| title = Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book| publisher = Andrews and McMeel| year = 1995| page = 14| isbn = 0-8362-0438-7| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=xtiMQXCLdJEC&pg=PA14| access-date = January 3, 2020| archive-date = January 15, 2023| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20230115125231/https://books.google.com/books?id=xtiMQXCLdJEC&pg=PA14| url-status = live}}</ref>

===End of ''Calvin and Hobbes''===

On November 9, 1995, Watterson announced the end of ''Calvin and Hobbes'' with the following letter to newspaper editors:<ref>{{cite web |last1=Murphy |first1=Bill Jr. |title=Newsletters Subscribe Lead The Calvin and Hobbes Resignation Letter Is the Best I've Ever Seen, and It's Suddenly Very Relevant |url=https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/the-calvin-hobbes-resignation-letter-is-best-ive-ever-seen-its-suddenly-very-relevant.html |website=Inc.com |access-date=September 26, 2023 |date=November 7, 2021}}</ref>

{{bquote|
Dear Reader:<br />
<br />
I will be stopping ''Calvin and Hobbes'' at the end of the year. This was not a recent or an easy decision, and I leave with some sadness. My interests have shifted, however, and I believe I've done what I can do within the constraints of daily deadlines and small panels. I am eager to work at a more thoughtful pace, with fewer artistic compromises. I have not yet decided on future projects, but my relationship with Universal Press Syndicate will continue.<br />
<br />
That so many newspapers would carry ''Calvin and Hobbes'' is an honor I'll long be proud of, and I've greatly appreciated your support and indulgence over the last decade. Drawing this comic strip has been a privilege and a pleasure, and I thank you for giving me the opportunity.<br />
<br />
Sincerely,<br />
Bill Watterson}}

The last strip of ''Calvin and Hobbes'' was published on December 31, 1995.