The Creator of Calvin & Hobbes is Profiled:
After graduating from Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, in 1980 with a degree in political science, Bill Watterson decided to pursue his life-long interest in cartooning and took to struggling with publishing syndicates. (Struggling with the establishment for artistic freedom became a natural habit). But after countless versions of comic strip ideas and submissions he struck gold with Calvin and Hobbes: an adventure through the imaginative psyche of a 6-year-old and his stuffed tiger.	Calvin & Hobbes
We know that Calvin is Evokateur. Transforming himself into Spaceman Spiff and saving the galaxy from certain destruction every other day is a good indication of that. Not to mention that his stuffed tiger appears extremely animate and talkative. So we know this much: Watterson is fully aware of Evokateur world. He grew up and currently lives in Ohio with his wife, their adopted children and several cats. After college, he worked six months at The Cincinnati Post as an editorial cartoonist. Staffers at the Post are said to remember Watterson as "That little guy with the round glasses, who was really strange." He almost never gives interviews and he has made it known that his privacy is extremely important to him. Commenting on his own personality, Watterson said, "Hobbes might be a little closer to me in terms of personality, with Calvin being more energetic, brash, always looking for life on the edge. He lives entirely in the present, and whatever he can do to make that moment more exciting he'll just let fly...and I'm really not like that at all." These comments in particular along with his need to expand comic-strip boundaries lean towards Healer Working: "When Hobbes is a stuffed toy in one panel and alive in the next, I'm juxtaposing the "grown-up" version of reality with Calvin's version, and inviting the reader to decide which is truer." [on comic-strip originality] "You should stick with what you enjoy, what you find funny -- that's the humor that will be the strongest, and that will transmit itself. Rather than trying to find out what the latest trend is, you should draw what is personally interesting." "If cartoonists would look at this more as an art than as a part time job or a get-rich-quick scheme, I think comics overall would be better. I think there's a tremendous potential to be tapped." He has a very deep sense of personal authenticity which comes out in the special care he takes with each comic strip--drawing from a new perspective or capturing just the right quality of motion. "Writing it, I'll sit down and stare into space for an hour and sometimes not come up with a single decent idea, or sometimes no idea at all, and it's very tempting to go do something else or just draw up a strip, but I find that if I make myself stick to it for another hour I can sometimes come up with several good ideas. And when I get to the drawing, I really enjoy taking a big chunk of time and working on the drawing and nothing else. That allows me to make sure that I'm really challenging the art, making each picture as interesting as I can...stick in a close-up or an odd perspective. This way, the writing doesn't distract me while I'm drawing and vice versa. I can devote my full attention to each." To us, this methodical attention to detail indicates Diligent Thinking. And his quality-over-quantity attitude ties in well with the extreme Self-responsibility of Healer Working and Evokateur Emoting. Watterson: ...I never know what to make of it when someone writes to say, "Calvin and Hobbes is the best strip in the paper. I like it even more than Nancy." Ugh. Interviewer: That's Andy Warhol's favorite strip. Watterson: Oh, well, that would figure. Maybe he's the nut writing me. The last Calvin and Hobbes strip was published in papers on December 31st, 1995 with Watterson saying, "I believe I've done what I can do within the constraints of daily deadlines and small panels. I am eager to work at a more thoughtful pace, with fewer artistic compromises." Bill Watterson: Diligent/Healer/Evokateur Profile Boss: Healer Rest assured he's lined up to change other perspectives somewhere in the art world or even...in your daily life. An interesting tip from Bill Ñ whether applied to comic characters or ANSIR® Profiles: [about the characters Calvin and Hobbes] "...If you have the personalities down, you understand them and identify with them; you can stick them in any situation and have a pretty good idea of how they're going to respond." You may read the interview from which most of these quotes came at: http://bob.bigw.org/ch/interview.html

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