A Teacher's Dispute of Watterson

Recently, an old friend of mine was sitting in her English class when her teacher asked her asked to write her favorite author on a piece of paper. She did not even think about hesitating as she put down Bill Watterson, creator of the comic strip, Calvin and Hobbes, for her answer. After this answer was read allowed her teacher responded by returning the paper back to her desk and said that cartoonists do not count as authors and had her write someone else who wrote “real stories.” As smart as this teacher may be, in that moment, she could not have been more wrong. Cartoonists put just as much, if not more work, into their writings than writers of books do.

Bill Watterson dedicated 10 years of his life to making Calvin and Hobbes and with each week he came up with at least one entirely different circumstance for the two characters. Calvin and Hobbes became real to everyone who read them. These characters had their own club, school, friends, home, parents, and tons of readers who loved Watterson’s work. When the strip was discontinued many people were disappointed and I am sure not one of these saddened people would say Watterson was not an author. Outside of being in newspapers for this many years, Watterson also compiled all his comics and placed them in about a dozen books. If making a book does not make you an author, then nothing does.

All the thought that goes into just one week of comics can easily add up to a children’s book and the people who write children’s books are all considered authors, so why did this teacher insist Bill Watterson was not one? Someone with her education, especially having been an English major, should know better and be able to recognize great work when she sees it. It disappoints me that she is also passing on this mindset to all her students.

Watterson put so much hard work and thought into everything he did and not just in drawing the characters and the great detail he put into their expressions, but also with what they said. These characters quoted many of Shakespeare’s plays and many of our founding fathers, such as Thomas Jefferson. All his comics taught life lessons or just made the reader think about life in general or their standing on a certain subject. Watterson had all of his fans thinking like a six year, but a very intelligent six year old. After reading Watterson’s works you could understand how a child must feel in almost any situation, but of course there was always the flip side as well, how does the parent feel. This comic strip does not allow you to escape from life as many fictional novels pride in having you do, but allows you to think twice about everything going on around you and make your life better. Calvin and Hobbes creates more progress than many novels. It makes me think twice as much as many novels have. This teacher in question needs to listen to herself and come to the realization that Watterson may actually be one of the greatest writers ever, specializing in short stories.