Yeah, very tragic. C&H was probably the best comic strip of our generation. It had humour, crazy adventures, arching storylines on a regular basis, excellent art, and messages that never talked down to kids. Best of all, aside from recurring bits like Spaceman Spiff (which ruled) there was no constanly recurring, rehashed themes. (Unlike Peanuts.)
I agree with some of the article, I wish that Watterson had done a bit more to promote the comic outside of just the books. Not pimping on the huge scale of Garfield, to be sure, but still something a little more than the nothing that was done! Comics are just like any other entertainment industry and a lot like gambling, really; while you can play by your own rules if you've got the clout, eventually you have to bow to the house. I don't think he realized that, of if he did he saw it in a vain way as him fighting The System.
The excuse making for him getting out is pitiful, though. To end a career after a long, successful run (like Peanuts should have done decades before the end) before it becomes nothing more than forumla endlessly repeated is one thing. To outright kill it at or near its apex, long before reliance on formula has been a byline, let along a mainstay, is something else altogether. Perhaps he even succumbed to fear of success, from hitting the jackpot bigtime his first time out.
I really do wish that he'd make a comeback, as the newspaper comics nowadays are quite a wasteland. Sure there are a few exceptions, but nothing had the wit and edge that C&H did. Alas, if even half this article is true we can expect never to see it.
-- Jack
Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.
-- Calvin
