I grew up reading newspaper comics during the “Calvin and Hobbes” era. I read Peanuts but I never understood its appeal as seemed extremely dull.
Later I read a collection of Peanuts from around 1955 and it was incredible. Kinda like early Simpsons
soperj 1633 days ago [-]
I grew up in the same era, thinking the same thing. I'll have to go check that out.
jacobkg 1633 days ago [-]
Even more surprising is to go back and read early Garfield.
RobertRoberts 1633 days ago [-]
Maybe when a cartoon hits syndication that the quality dips?
I read somewhere that is when Bill Waters (of Calvin & Hobbs) quit creating, when syndication was his only viable option moving forward. (I think he was burning out)
I loved Garfield as a kid, but as an adult it was really dull. I tried to even enjoy the old stuff... But this makes Garfield awesome again: (you may need some Garfield experience before appreciating this)
Calvin and Hobbes was syndicated. What do you mean?
RobertRoberts 1633 days ago [-]
Sorry if I wrote that vaguely, he did _not_ syndicate. He was burnt out and it was either close up shop or syndicate, he chose to close up shop.
I may be off on this a little, as I did a little reading to verify. Waterson was opposed to having other people write and draw the Calvin & Hobbs cartoon for him. He noted that so many other cartoons had done this and their quality had plumetted.
From memory (because it was written in his last book, and I can't find it online) he said that when he couldn't make a new cartoon every day and be happy with the quality, he would be done.
Edit: I may be conflating syndication with licensing.... :P
tempguy9999 1633 days ago [-]
I guess people just get tired of having to be machines of continual creation. It must be terribly wearing. I'm not surprised it becomes just crank-turning after a while.
Unrelated but I'd like to plug this which is brilliant, though it seems the author burned out a while ago. One of the best comics I've come across https://abstrusegoose.com/
Hit Random a few times and you'll start getting some good ones. He seems to be a high level physicist so there are some impenetrable bits of maths etc. which you can safely skip.
KineticLensman 1633 days ago [-]
> I guess people just get tired of having to be machines of continual creation.
Gary Larson (Far Side) [0] is a great example of a great cartoonist who quit while he was ahead. I was both sad and appreciative when he stopped. Fawlty Towers [1] is an example of a series whose creators also intentionally stopped it before it jumped the shark.
What a beautiful short take on how we build our own work, unknowingly at the time, by looking at our predecessors' work.
1634 days ago [-]
GnarfGnarf 1633 days ago [-]
Schulz should have quit in the 70's. He dragged it on for far too long.
phkahler 1633 days ago [-]
He would have died sooner. I say that only partly in jest. When he was going to retire, he wrote the last strip ahead of publication and people were wondering what it would be. It was basically a thank you to the fans. He died the day it ran in the papers.
Edit: he died the day before.
1633 days ago [-]
Lio 1633 days ago [-]
I used to think something similar of many of my favourite musicians who were making their best work in the 1970s.
The thing is that sometimes people crank out something amazing later in their career that no one saw coming.
So I say artists should do what they like whilst they still love doing it; leave the rest of the world to the job filtering the results into a "canon" of best work.
Rendered at 18:05:57 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
Later I read a collection of Peanuts from around 1955 and it was incredible. Kinda like early Simpsons
I read somewhere that is when Bill Waters (of Calvin & Hobbs) quit creating, when syndication was his only viable option moving forward. (I think he was burning out)
I loved Garfield as a kid, but as an adult it was really dull. I tried to even enjoy the old stuff... But this makes Garfield awesome again: (you may need some Garfield experience before appreciating this)
https://garfieldminusgarfield.net/
I may be off on this a little, as I did a little reading to verify. Waterson was opposed to having other people write and draw the Calvin & Hobbs cartoon for him. He noted that so many other cartoons had done this and their quality had plumetted.
From memory (because it was written in his last book, and I can't find it online) he said that when he couldn't make a new cartoon every day and be happy with the quality, he would be done.
Edit: I may be conflating syndication with licensing.... :P
Unrelated but I'd like to plug this which is brilliant, though it seems the author burned out a while ago. One of the best comics I've come across https://abstrusegoose.com/
Hit Random a few times and you'll start getting some good ones. He seems to be a high level physicist so there are some impenetrable bits of maths etc. which you can safely skip.
Gary Larson (Far Side) [0] is a great example of a great cartoonist who quit while he was ahead. I was both sad and appreciative when he stopped. Fawlty Towers [1] is an example of a series whose creators also intentionally stopped it before it jumped the shark.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Larson
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fawlty_Towers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building_Stories
Edit: he died the day before.
The thing is that sometimes people crank out something amazing later in their career that no one saw coming.
So I say artists should do what they like whilst they still love doing it; leave the rest of the world to the job filtering the results into a "canon" of best work.