good god, no
Feb. 3rd, 2010 01:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacWhen I posted yesterday proposing Bill Watterson as J.D. Salinger's successor as the once prolific, now silent and reclusive author, the comments I got assumed that I would have preferred he continue Calvin & Hobbes indefinitely, driving it into the ground.
Good god, no. Had I thought I'd be read as saying that, I wouldn't have posted at all. What I most respect Watterson for is stopping when he did. He knows the dangers. Once, Peanuts was a great strip, and look what happened to that.
But plenty of good authors go on mining their own particular vein without mindlessly repeating themselves. Whatever it was that Salinger was writing but not publishing in his later years, it would have been recognizably him, but not increasingly dim copies of Catcher or an endless series of Glass family stories.
Watterson was good enough that he should have had it in him to do something else, also good, similar but different, after Calvin ended. That he did not is his decision, but I could still wish it were otherwise.
Good god, no. Had I thought I'd be read as saying that, I wouldn't have posted at all. What I most respect Watterson for is stopping when he did. He knows the dangers. Once, Peanuts was a great strip, and look what happened to that.
But plenty of good authors go on mining their own particular vein without mindlessly repeating themselves. Whatever it was that Salinger was writing but not publishing in his later years, it would have been recognizably him, but not increasingly dim copies of Catcher or an endless series of Glass family stories.
Watterson was good enough that he should have had it in him to do something else, also good, similar but different, after Calvin ended. That he did not is his decision, but I could still wish it were otherwise.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 06:22 pm (UTC)That’s also how I feel about Gary Larson and The Far Side. Better to draw it to a close while it’s still good.
Jim Davis is entirely mercenary about Garfield; I was highly entertained that he endorsed the publication of Garfield Minus Garfield, as I expect he still got his cut...
no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 07:30 pm (UTC)