Well, that recluse J.D. Salinger died. Which raises the question about another famous person who disappeared from sight.
Where is Bill Watterson?
Fifteen years ago the creator of Calvin and Hobbes walked away from one of the greatest comic strips ever written. Today, Joe, a colleague school, sent me this link from an article that came out two days ago in the Cleveland paper (Watterson is an Ohioan) The Plain Dealer. From the article:
Fans, who had enjoyed 10 years and more than 3,100 installments, were left without a daily face-to-face with the spiky-haired 6-year-old who had become a part of American culture. They couldn't even hug a stuffed Hobbes or watch an animated special or put on a Calvin T-shirt (an authorized one, at least) because of Watterson's stubborn refusal to license away his characters.Readers of this blog are already aware of my online tribute to Calvin and Hobbes. I'm hoping to teach an Honors seminar on the theology of Calvin and Hobbes next fall here at ACU.
It was cold turkey -- and many fans continue to feel withdrawal.
"Still, people come up to me, and they grieve the loss of 'Calvin and Hobbes.' It's genuine," says Lucy Caswell, curator of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum at Ohio State University, the renowned research facility that houses almost half a million original works of cartoon art, including all but about a hundred of Watterson's original strips.
The reason they mourn, she says, is that they had made friends with Calvin and his tiger. When he left, there was true emptiness.
Don't miss the accompanying interview- the first since 1989!
I missed it the first time I read this - until somebody sent it to me seperately. You can find it within the box at the beginning of the article. (I'd post the link, put blogger is blocking copying and pasting.)
When you do the seminar, is that something that the public would be able to audit? I'd love to participate.