Bavetta

5/2001

Bill Watterson

 

            Bill Watterson is a poet, and although many people don't know it, he was born (isn't it great) in 1958.  He spent quite a while making comics with style, and indeed he was the maker, of the comic in the paper.  "Calvin and Hobbes" was his creation, which stemmed from his imagination.  Hidden in his comics, often he wrote sonnets, and don't let me begin on the poems that make me grin.  Soon you will get to know him, and that's the end of this poem.

 

            As you can probably tell, a great poem needs a superb author to create it (which is one reason why mine is so lousy).  Also, a poem, much like a car shooting over the expansion joints on a bridge, needs direction, timing, and a rhythmic tune that keeps things in line.  I believe William Watterson (a.k.a. Bill Watterson) is exactly that kind of person.  His most famed work centers around "Calvin and Hobbes" which was a comic strip published in newspapers around the world.  It joined together many of his life experiences through the eyes of a humorous 6th grader.

 

            Bill was brought into the world on July 5, 1958 in a little town called Washington D.C.  When he was around 6 years of age, his family decided to get up and leave that place and head on over to Chagrin Falls, Ohio where he spent the rest of his childhood. His cartoons were displayed in the school paper, the yearbook and in numerous bathroom stall doors.  Later, he went to Kenyon College where he got a degree in political science "thanks to a friend with access to the school's computer."  People encouraged him to make political cartoons and through trial and error he developed many of the ideas and higher-level thinking that permeates his work.

 

            His childhood, unlike many might think, was calm and quite unlike that of his boisterous 6th grade comic character Calvin.  However, Bill says, "Inside every adult (some deeper than others) is a bratty kid who wants everything his own way."  Calvin's parents were almost an exact replica of Bill's own parents and, like everyone's parents, they were weird.  Bill comically remembers his family camping vacations where they had to gut fish and cut off their heads in the worst rainstorm of the year and his dad saying all the while "It builds character."  This explains where the sort of humor that is prevalent through out his comics and poems comes from.

 

            Additional influences that he mentioned came from other comic strips, namely "Peanuts" by Charles Schulz, "Pogo" by Walt Kelly, and "Krazy Kat" by George Herriman.  He observed Snoopy's weird separate world and pondered the discussion of serious issues using children as the means of expression.  On the other hand, Pogo had none of this, but was peaceful and overall had a belief in "human decency."  The third comic, Krazy Kat, had a poetic air to it and included mispronunciation, slang and a peculiar atmosphere. All of these strips held different personalities and all contributed strongly to Bill's own personality and career.

 

            The whole creation process, he says, basically looks like goofing off to the untrained eye.  He just takes a blank sheet of paper, stares at it for a while, imagines, and sees what comes.  Sometimes hours will go by without a single inspiration, other times several come and he frantically jots down ideas and starts stringing things together.

 

            In an attitude sense, Bill's poems either reflect his own character and thoughts on life, or (more often) the complete opposite.  He likes to have fun with his work and feels that if he's bored making it, the reader will be bored as well.  For example, in the poem "My Mom and Dad" from It's a Magical World, he writes:

 

"My mom and dad are not what they seem.

Their dull appearance is part of their scheme.

I know of their plans. I know their techniques.

My parents are outer space alien freaks."

 

            He remarks that it's fun to take the other side of an issue on particularly on something that's as bizarre as this.  Bill once remarked that "For some reason when I watch my cats sleep poems spring to mind" and he has written many poems on that line, such as his "Ode to Tigers" which reads as follows:

 

"Still and quiet feline form,

In the sun asleep and warm,

His tail is limp his whiskers drooped,

Man what could make this cat so pooped?"

 

            Suzie Dirkens (another character in the strip) closely resembles what Bill liked in a girl while he was in school and also the qualities of his eventual wife; a smart, serious, and earnest person. Calvin has a small crush on her too, which encourages him to be even weirder as shown in this poem:

 

"This is a poem, please do what you're told:

Here is a bucket of water ice cold.

Please take this water and dump it on me,

Do not hesitate, do it ASAP."

 

            Overall, Bill Watterson holds many of the same beliefs as I; Such as: A comical conversation is a lot more interesting than a one liner, and if you're having fun creating, so will the people on the other end. Though Bill Watterson's poems may not be as thought provoking as some other poets, his work shows a definite connection to his life experiences; such as the family camping trips, his dad's sarcastic humor, and his cat.