I don’t believe that even a more definitive bio of Watterson, one with his cooperation, will bring much more understanding to the strip or even his art. It’s all there to see, he got it all out, and Watterson has explained some of it and explained it well.

Stll, a bio with Watterson’s cooperation might answer some of the questions so many of us have, such as why, or how, such a creative person who obviously loved comics could just drop it. Drop it for what? The creativity doesn’t just go away, nor the humor, nor the tremendous comic art talent. Did he just burn out? (It can be permanent.) Was it time to create more characters or expand the strip somehow and he didn’t want to do that or just couldn’t think of a way to expand it? (Schulz could go on for 40 more years because of such expansions and further developments – Snoopy and Woodstock, The Red Baron, etc.). Does he ever have ideas for a new strip? And does Watterson himself even really understand why he quit so totally?

And the questions go on and on…

So I really want the book, but Bill doesn’t.

It’s like my very own Sophie’s Choice.

We had just appeared in the same trade magazine together when he was doing editorial cartoons for a small Ohio newspaper.I wrote him an encouraging note (a fan letter actually) about this great new strip he was launching.

He responded on a 5×7 sheet of paper, typed, single spaced. He sounded very common- not like the fabled reclusive demi-god of today.

It was a friendly note. He signed his name “Bill” in rapidograph with an ink and brushed Hobbes delivering a bronx cheer beneath. Maybe i own the only original outside of OSU.

I think he and Gary Larsen killed the comics page when they retired.

As to the whole “recluse” thing- isn’t he an avid cyclist? It seems it would be easy enough to spot him out in the open.

I don’t know if I want to read the book. I feel I’d rather see the painting myself then hear what other people think about it (not a perfect metaphor, I know).

I was lucky enough to be friends with Sparky, where I knew him better than some and nearly as well as others. But what I can tell you without fear of contradiction is that he was eminently human. He had foibles and hang ups like all the rest of us, but what separates from the rest of us wasn’t his fame and fortune, but that the man I knew was one of the most generous human beings I ever met, both in spirit and in charity.

But nice is boring, and doesn’t sell books, much the same as we don’t do “nice” cartoons. So the focus is set on the human foible aspect and skews the real perspective of the man. I’ve never met Bill Watterson and don’t know any more about him than anyone else here, but I’ll bet the same is true for him regarding a biography he didn’t participate in. It amounts to gossip. We all love gossip, and we all know how very unfair it is.

Personally I prefer the book “Charles M. Schulz: Conversations,” which essentially reprints a series of interviews and magazine articles.

My take is that Watterson’s made it clear he wants to be left the hell alone, and it just seems to me that someone who really respects him and his work ought to respect that wish as well. He gave us the strip; that’s all he owed us and as much of his life as we’re entitled to. I don’t intend to reward a project he refused to be part of and no doubt considers a violation of his privacy.

If Watterson ever writes something about himself or his process, I’ll buy that. If not, the world will go on spinning somehow.

But it’s the same thing as any biographer does, where they go against type of the public image to make a more compelling, controversial story in order to sell books. And they do that by taking liberties with the truth. So although a great deal of the book may indeed be factual, the parts that aren’t taint the entire thing.

Considering the end result of the current Schulz biography, though, I think it’s not surprising that Mr. Watterson is holing (and clamming) up.

It’s not that I think “Schulz and Peanuts” is a poorly written book, but it does sound to me like the contributors (especially Monte Schulz) were sold a bill of goods by the author in terms of how the book would portray its subject. Many friends of Sparky and family members have come forward since its publication to contest this portrait.

There’s a great issue of the Comics Journal (#290) that deals with this controversy, as well as some lengthy posts on cartoonbrew.com discussing various ‘facts’ (and the tone in which they are presented) in the book. If you’re interested in trying to sort fact from fiction, I’d check these out for starters…

You can still buy TCJ #290 here:
http://thecomicsjournal.com/

Read the Cartoon Brew Monte Schulz post here:
http://www.cartoonbrew.com/books/more-on-the-schulz-book.html#comment-34417