249 Quotes by Bill Watterson

Weekends don't count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless.

Nothing helps a bad mood like spreading it around. (Meaning)

What fun is it being cool if you can't wear a sombrero?

We all have different desires and needs, but if we don't discover what we want from ourselves and what we stand for, we will live passively and unfulfilled.

Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive. To invent your own life's meaning is not easy, but it's still allowed, and I think you'll be happier for the trouble.

There is not enough time to do all the nothing we want to do.

When birds burp, it must taste like bugs.

The truth is, most of us discover where we are headed when we arrive.

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Selling out is usually more a matter of buying in. Sell out, and you’re really buying into someone else’s system of values, rules and rewards.

Girls are like slugs - they probably serve some purpose, but it's hard to imagine what.

I'm not a vegetarian! I'm a dessertarian!

I know the world isn't fair, but why isn't it ever unfair in my favor?

County library? Reference desk, please. Hello? Yes, I need a word definition. Well, that's the problem. I don't know how to spell it and I'm not allowed to say it. Could you just rattle off all the swear words you know and I'll stop you when...Hello?

Did you ever wonder if the person in the puddle is real, and you're just a reflection of him?

Know what's weird? Day by day, nothing seems to change. But pretty soon, everything's different.

If people sat outside and looked at the stars each night, I'll bet they'd live a lot differently.

It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.

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Look! A trickle of water running through some dirt! I'd say our afternoon just got booked solid!

I think we dream so we don't have to be apart so long. If we're in each other's dreams, we can play together all night.

You can't just turn on creativity like a faucet. You have to be in the right mood. What mood is that? Last-minute panic.

You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocket ship underpants don't help.

To invent your own life's meaning is not easy, but it's still allowed, and I think you'll be happier for the trouble.

It's not denial. I'm just selective about the reality I accept.

If people looked at the stars each night, they'd live a lot differently. When you look into infinity, you realize that there are more important things than what people do all day.

What's the point of wearing your favorite rocket ship underpants if nobody ever asks to see 'em?

Getting an inch of snow is like winning 10 cents in the lottery.

Calvin: The more you know, the harder it is to take decisive action. Once you are informed, you start seeing complexities and shades of gray. You realize nothing is as clear as it first appears. Ultimately, knowledge is paralyzing. Being a man of action, I cannot afford to take that risk. Hobbes: You're ignorant, but at least you act on it.

I've got to start listening to those quiet, nagging doubts.

If good things lasted forever, would we appreciate how precious they are?

The purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure pure reasoning, and inhibit clarity. With a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog!

You will do well to cultivate the resources in yourself that bring you happiness outside of success or failure.

Things are never quite as scary when you've got a best friend.

Life is full of surprises, but never when you need one.

Calvin: Today for show and tell, I've brought a tiny miracle of nature: a single snowflake! I think we might all learn a lesson from how this utterly unique and exquisite crystal turns into an ordinary, boring molecule of water just like every other one when you bring it into the classroom. And now, while the analogy sinks in, I will be leaving you drips and going outside.

A little rudeness and disrespect can elevate a meaningless interaction to a battle of wills and add drama to an otherwise dull day.

Calvin: They say the world is a stage. But obviously the play is unrehearsed and everybody is ad-libbing his lines. Hobbes: Maybe that’s why it’s hard to tell if we’re living in a tragedy or a farce. Calvin: We need more special effects and dance numbers.

A box of new crayons! Now they’re all pointy, lined up in order, bright and perfect. Soon they’ll be a bunch of ground down, rounded, indistinguishable stumps, missing their wrappers and smudged with other colors. Sometimes life seems unbearably tragic.

The problem with the future is that it keeps turning into the present.

Happiness isn't good enough for me! I demand euphoria!

We're so busy watching out for what's just ahead of us that we don't take time to enjoy where we are.

It's a cruel season that makes you get ready for bed while it's light out.

I'm learning real skills that I can apply throughout the rest of my life...procrastinating and rationalizing.

Letting your mind play is the best way to solve problems.

It's surprising how hard we'll work when the work is done just for ourselves.

I've been interested in cartooning all my life. I read the comics as a kid, and I did cartoons for high school publications - the newspaper and yearbook and soon. In college, I got interested in political cartooning and did political cartoons.

They can't chain my spirit! My spirit runs free! Walls can't contain it! Laws can't restrain it! Authority has no power over it!

It's always better to leave the party early.

History is the fiction we invent to persuade ourselves that events are knowable and that life has order and direction. That's why events are always reinterpreted when values change. We need new versions of history to allow for our current prejudices.

It's psychosomatic. You need a lobotomy. I'll get a saw.

When life gives you lemons, chunk it right back.

Tomorrow we'll not only seize the day, we'll throttle it.

Life's disappointments are harder to take when you don't know any swear words.

People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world.

Sometimes what holds you together and what tears you apart are the same things.

My lungs are made of armor so that I can breathe when you are not here.

6.8 million people live alone in England. Do you feel lonely?

I don't have the courage to face reality so I get lost in my dreams.

You know what's weird? Day by day, nothing seems to change. But pretty soon, everything's different."

I asked mom if I was a gifted child. She said they certainly wouldn't have paid for me.

Calvin: Sometimes when I'm talking, my words can't keep up with my thoughts. I wonder why we can think faster than we speak? Hobbes: Probably so we can think twice.

In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive.

Ah, the life of a newspaper cartoonist - how I miss the groupies, drugs and trashed hotel rooms!

The world of a comic strip ought to be a special place with its own logic and life... I don't want the issue of Hobbes's reality settled by a doll manufacturer.

I won't eat any cereal that doesn't turn the milk purple.

Sleepwalking?" "Nightmare?" "Homicidal psycho jungle cat!

At school, new ideas are thrust at you every day. Out in the world, you’ll have to find the inner motivation to search for new ideas on your own. With any luck at all, you’ll never need to take an idea and squeeze a punchline out of it, but as bright, creative people, you’ll be called upon to generate ideas and solutions all your lives. Letting your mind play is the best way to solve problems.

That's one of the remarkable things about life. It's never so bad that it can't get worse.

I'm killing time while I wait for life to shower me with meaning and happiness.

Surprise is the essence of humor, and nothing is more surprising than truth.

Verbing weirds language.

If you can't control your peanut butter, you can't expect to control your life.

I let my mind wander and it didn't come back.

The problem with people is that they're only human.

If your knees aren't green by the end of the day, you ought to seriously re-examine your life.

I liked things better when I didn't understand them.

Dad, how do soldiers killing each other solve the world's problems?

From now on, I'll connect the dots my own way.

I'll bet my autopsy reveals my mouth is too big.

You mix a bunch of ingredients, and once in a great while, chemistry happens.

The whole idea of hobknobbing and schmoozing and the concept of an "elite" class of celebrities better than the common people has always made my stomach turn.

I was reading about how countless species are being pushed toward extinction by man's destruction of forests. . . . Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.

I hope some historian will confirm that I was the first cartoonist to use the word 'booger' in a newspaper comic strip.

Blustery cold days should be spend propped up in bed with a mug of hot chocolate and a pile of comic books.

Shutting off the thought process is not rejuvenating; the mind is like a car battery - it recharges by running.

Like delicate lace, so the threads intertwine, oh, gossamer web of wond'rous design! Such beauty and grace wild nature produces... Ughh, look at that spider suck out that bug's juices!

It's only work if somebody makes you do it.

Often it takes some calamity to make us live in the present. Then suddenly we wake up and see all the mistakes we have made.

If you do the job badly enough, sometimes you don't get asked to do it again.

I'm not dumb. I just have a command of thoroughly useless information.

Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?

You know, sometimes the world seems like a pretty mean place.' 'That's why animals are so soft and huggy.

A day can really slip by when you're deliberately avoiding what you're supposed to do.

Who was the guy who first looked at a cow and said 'I think I’ll drink whatever comes out of these when I squeeze ’em?

The real fun of living wisely is that you get to be smug about it.

There's no problem so awful that you can't add some guilt to it and make it even worse!

Rainy days should be spent at home with a cup of tea and a good book.

Calvin: Isn't it strange that evolution would give us a sense of humor? When you think about it, it's weird that we have a physiological response to absurdity. We laugh at nonsense. We like it. We think it's funny. Don't you think it's odd that we appreciate absurdity? Why would we develop that way? How does it benefit us? Hobbes: I suppose if we couldn't laugh at things that don't make sense, we couldn't react to a lot of life.

I suppose if we couldn't laugh at things that don't make sense, we couldn't react to a lot of life.

As far as I'm concerned, if something is so complicated that you can't explain it in 10 seconds, then it's probably not worth knowing anyway.

So, what's it like in the real world? Well, the food is better, but beyond that, I don't recommend it.

If comics need to be deconstructed and explained, something is really wrong with them.

Calvin: ME TARZAN! KING OF JUNGLE! Suzy: Nice underpants. Does your mom know you're over here like this? Calvin:...I don't think Jane EVER said that to Tarzan.

Reading those turgid philosophers here in these remote stone buildings may not get you a job, but if those books have forced you to ask yourself questions about what makes life truthful, purposeful, meaningful, and redeeming, you have the Swiss Army Knife of mental tools, and it's going to come in handy all the time.

Hold it. You know what I'd like to see? I'd like to see the three bears eat the three little pigs, and then the bears join up with the big bad wolf and eat Goldilocks and Little Red Riding Hood! Tell me a story like that, OK?

When the cartoonist is trying to talk honestly and seriously about life, then I believe he has a responsibility to think beyond satisfying the market's every whim and desire.

Calvin: Dad where do babies come from? Dad: Well Calvin, you simply go to Sears, buy the kit and follow the assembly instructions. Calvin: I came from Sears? Dad: No you were a blue-light special at K-Mart - almost as good and a lot cheaper!

We don't devote enough scientific research to finding a cure for jerks.

Good friends are hard to come by. I need more money.

I think of football as a sport the way ducks think of hunting as a sport.

You can draw a penguin on a toilet reading The New York Times and it's adorable, but try doing it with an adult male character, and it's disgusting.

Mom and Dad say I should make my life an example of the principles I believe in... But every time I do, they tell me to stop it.

Art has to keep moving and discovering to stay alive.

A playful mind is inquisitive, and learning is fun. If you indulge your natural curiosity and retain a sense of fun in new experience, I think you'll find it functions as a sort of shock absorber for the bumpy road ahead.

Oh look, yet another Christmas TV special! How touching to have the meaning of Christmas brought to us by cola, fast food, and beer... Who'd have ever guessed that product consumption, popular entertainment, and spirituality would mix so harmoniously?

Reality continues to ruin my life.

Form follows function, as the architects say. With words and pictures, you can do just about anything.

I learned about what I love. Imagination, deep friendship, animals, family, the natural world, ideas and ideals ... and silliness.

Hobbes: How come we play war and not peace? Calvin: Too few role models.

The way Calvin's brain is wired, you can almost hear the fuses blowing.

People who get nostalgic about childhood were obviously never children.

That's the whole problem with science. You've got a bunch of empiricists trying to describe things of unimaginable wonder.

So the secret to good self-esteem is to lower your expectations to the point where they're already met?

Happiness is being famous for your financial ability to indulge in every kind of excess.

I've always tried to make the strip animated, even when the characters aren't moving, with expressions or perspectives or some sort of exaggeration. There's great potential for that which has yet to be fully mined.

It's going to be a grim day when the world is run by a generation that doesn't know anything but what it's seen on TV.

Some people are pragmatists, taking things as they come and making the best of the choices available. Some people are idealists, standing for principle and refusing to compromise. And some people just act on any whim that enters their heads. I pragmatically turn my whims into principles.

Leave it to a girl to take the fun out of sex discrimination.

Everybody I know fails the acid test of friendship.

I'm related to people I don't relate to.

Isn't it sad how some people's grip on their lives is so precarious that they'll embrace any preposterous delusion rather than face an occasional bleak truth?

If you can't win by reason, go for volume.

A REAL job is a job you hate.

You can present the material, but you can't make me care.

Life is like topography, Hobbes. There are summits of happiness and success, flat stretches of boring routine and valleys of frustration and failure.

You can drag my body to school but my spirit refuses to go.

As you can see, I have memorized this utterly useless piece of information long enough to pass a test question. I now intend to forget it forever. You’ve taught me nothing except how to cynically manipulate the system. Congratulations.

I wonder if you can refuse to inherit the world.

There are no restrictions of taste, approach, or subject matter. The gatekeepers are gone, so the prospect for new and different voices is exciting. Or at least it will be if anyone reads them. And it will be even more exciting if anyone pays for them. It's hard to charge admission without a gate.

My likely historical significance is a terrible burden. ~ Calvin

Careful. We don't want to learn from this.

At school, new ideas are thrust at you every day. Out in the world, you'll have to find your inner motivation to seek for new ideas on your own.

Well, remember what you said, because in a day or two, I'll have a witty and blistering retort! You'll be devastated THEN

What state do you live in? Denial.

Hobbes: Do you think there's a God? Calvin: Well, somebody's out to get me!

Until you stalk and overrun, you cannot devour anyone. -Hobbes

Obviously the role of comics is changing very fast. On the one hand, comics are widely accepted and taken seriously. On the other hand, the mass media is disintegrating, and audiences are atomizing. I suspect comics will have less widespread cultural impact and make a lot less money.

It's gratifying to hear that from people who care about comic art. 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."

No sport is less organized than Calvinball.

As "Calvin and Hobbes" went on, the writing pushed the drawings into greater complexity. One of the jokes I really like is that the fantasies are drawn more realistically than reality, since that says a lot about what's going on in Calvin's head.

Virtual reality has nothing on Calvin.

All the new media will inevitably change the look, function, and maybe even the purpose of comics, but comics are vibrant and versatile, so I think they'll continue to find relevance one way or another. But they definitely won't be the same as what I grew up with.

Specifically, I’d like to debate whether cannibalism ought to be grounds for leniency in murders, since it’s less wasteful.

Genius is never understood in its own time.

I think hiccup cures were really invented for the amusement of the patient's friends.

The secret to enjoying your job is to have a hobby that's even worse

People always make the mistake of thinking art is created for them. But really, art is a private language for sophisticates to congratulate themselves on their superiority to the rest of the world. As my artist’s statement explains, my work is utterly incomprehensible and is therefore full of deep significance.

It's a magical world, Hobbes, ol' buddy... Let's go exploring!

Repetition is the death of magic.

Childhood is for spoiling adulthood.

Reading goes faster if you don't sweat comprehension.

Leader, bandits at 2 o'clock! Roger; it's only 1:30 now-what'll I do 'til then?

I think most of us would be horrified to meet ourselves and discover what everyone else already knows about us.

Mothers are the necessity of invention.

Scientific Progress goes boink?

I wonder where we go when we die?” “…Pittsburgh?” “You mean if we’re good or if we’re bad?

I've been thinking Hobbes" "On a weekend?" "Well, it wasn't on purpose

Hey Susie Derkins, is that your face, or is a 'possum stuck in your collar?

Yeah, but actually, I've got the same questions about God.

You can make your superhero a psychopath, you can draw gut-splattering violence, and you can call it a "graphic novel," but comic books are still incredibly stupid.

Miss Wormwood: Calvin, your test was an absolute disgrace! It's obvious you haven't read any of the material. Our first president was not Chef Boy-Ar-Dee and you ought to be ashamed to have turned in such preposterous answers! Calvin: I just don't test well.

Although I'm certainly glad cartoons are finally getting some respect as an art, I'm fairly ambivalent to see cartooning as a legitimate academic offering. If comics need to be deconstructed and explained, something is really wrong with them.

The writing doesn't distract me while I'm drawing and vice versa. I can devote my full attention to each.

Too often cartoonists just look at other cartoonists and, after a lot of inbreeding, everyone has the same funny look. The challenge of drawing is that there is no one right way to visually describe something. It's a good thing to confront your limitations and preconceptions every so often.

My whole problem is that my lips move when I think.

Problems often look overwhelming at first. The secret is to break problems into small, manageable chunks. If you deal with those, you're done before you know it.

We all have different desires and needs, but if we don't discover what we want from ourselves and what we stand for, we will live passively and unfulfilled. Sooner or later, we are all asked to compromise ourselves and the things we care about. We define ourselves by our actions. With each decision, we tell ourselves and the world who we are. Think about what you want out of this life, and recognize that there are many kinds of success.

It seems like once people grow up, they have no idea what's cool.

I like my smock. You can tell the quality of the artist by the quality of his smock. Actually, I just like to say smock. Smock smock smock smock smock smock.

From now on, I'm not doing anything I don't want to do! The world owes me happiness, fulfillment and success... I'm just here to cash in.

Van Gogh would’ve sold more than one painting if he’d put tigers in them.

Once it's too late, you appreciate what a miracle life is.

The more words you have at your disposal, the more precisely you can express yourself.

It's not the medium, but the quality of perception and expression, that determines the significance of art.

Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement.

Having an enviable career is one thing. Being a happy person is another

You know what's the rage this year? ...Hats.

Every time I've built character, I've regretted it.

Planet Bog - Pools of toxic chemicals bubble under a choking atmosphere of poisonous gases... but aside from that, it's not much like Earth.

It seems the less I do and say, the better everyone likes my work!

The strips I admire go farther than a gag a day, and take us into a special world.

For me, it's been liberating to put myself in the mind of a fictitious six year-old each day, and rediscover my own curiosity. I've been amazed at how one idea leads to others if I allow my mind to play and wander.

Let's say that life is this square of the sidewalk. We are born at this crack and we die at that crack. Now we find ourselves somewhere inside the square and in the process of walking outside of it. Suddenly, we realize our time in here is fleeting. Is our quick experience here pointless? Does anything we say or do in here really matter? Have we done anything important? Have we been happy? Have we made the most of these precious few footsteps?

People pay more attention when they think you’re up to something.

My problem is that I don't paint ambitiously. It's all catch and release - just tiny fish that aren't really worth the trouble to clean and cook.

The secret to happiness is short-term, stupid self-interest!

What assurance do I have that your parenting isn't screwing me up?

I have enough friends who are gamers. I actually enjoy watching them play because of the visuals and the storytelling of the games. I just love being able to go on an adventure and games are just so sophisticated now that you can just get lost in a world for 20 hours and just be someone else in a very visceral, emotional way. And that's just fascinating.

Cleveland is a really hard place, it's a very creative place, it feeds you creatively, but it's a very hard place to make a living creatively.

Well, coming at a new work requires a certain amount of patience and energy, and there’s always the risk of disappointment. You can’t really blame people for preferring more of what they already know and like. The trade-off, of course, is that predictability is boring. Repetition is the death of magic.

Boy, there's nothing worse than an inscrutable omen.

If you don't get a goodnight kiss, you get Kafka dreams.

In the short term, it would make me happy to go play outside. In the long term, it would make me happier to do well at school and become successful. But in the VERY long term, I know which will make better memories.

CALVIN: This whole Santa Claus thing just doesn't make sense. Why all the secrecy? Why all the mystery? If the guy exists why doesn't he ever show himself and prove it? And if he doesn't exist what's the meaning of all this? HOBBES: I dunno. Isn't this a religious holiday? CALVIN: Yeah, but actually, I've got the same questions about God.

Calvin: Life's a lot more fun when you aren't responsible for your actions.

Few things are less comforting than a tiger who's up too late.

Never argue with a six-year-old who shaves.

Even when you look for it, you're never prepared for it.

I'd like to see cartoonists measuring their work by higher standards than how many papers their strips are in and how much money they make.

In the right hands, a comic strip attains a beauty and elegance that, really, I would put against any other art.

Of course, REAL zombies never get the giggles when they look at each other.

I thought my life would seem more interesting with a musical score and a laugh track.

Even if lives did hang in the balance, it would depend on whose they were.

Hello Dad! It is now three in the morning. Do you know where I am?

There's more to this world than just people, you know.

You know, there are times when it's a source of personal pride to not be human.

You never know when some crazed rodent with cold feet could be running loose in your pants.

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. Then it's just a matter of sanding and polishing up the jokes. But if you've got more ambiguous characters or stock stereotypes, the plastic comes through and they don't work as well. These two characters clicked for me almost immediately and I feel very comfortable working with them.

We're not really taught how to recreate constructively. We need to do more than find diversions; we need to restore and expand ourselves. Our idea of relaxing is all too often to plop down in front of the television set and let its pandering idiocy liquefy our brains. Shutting off the thought process is not rejuvenating; the mind is like a car battery - it recharges by running.

It must be hard to cook if you anthropomorphisize your vegetables.

You are demoted from First Tiger to bulk rate.

I'm crying because out there he's gone, but he's not gone inside me.

I must follow the inscrutable exhortations of my soul.

Instead of asking what's wrong with rampant consumerism, we ought to be asking, 'What justifies it?' Popular art does not have to pander to the lowest level of intelligence and taste.

For your information, I'm staying like this, and everyone else can just get used to it! If people don't like me the way I am, well TOUGH BEANS! It's a free country! I don't need anyone's permission to be the way I want! This is who I am - Take it or leave it!

I say if a novelty Christmas song is funny one time, then it is funny every time. - Calvin

I'm a 21st-century kid trapped in a 19th-century family.

I'd hate to have a kid like me.

Why does man create? Is it man's purpose on earth to express himself, to bring form to thought, and to discover meaning in experience? Or is it just something to do when he's bored?

But for my own example, I'd never believe one little kid could have so much brains!

But Calvin is no kind and loving god! He's one of the old gods! He demands sacrifice!

So long, Pop! I'm off to check my tiger trap!

Paul Gauguin asked, "Whence do we come? What are we? Where are we going?" Well, I don't know about anyone else, but I came from my room, I'm a kid with big plans, and I'm going outside! See ya later!.. Say, who the heck is Paul Gauguin anyway?

The syndicates take the strip and sell it to newspapers and split the income with the cartoonists. Syndicates are essentially agents. Now, can you imagine a novelist giving his literary agent the ownership of his characters and all reprint, television, and movie rights before the agent takes the manuscript to a publisher? Obviously, an author would have to be a raving lunatic to agree to such a deal, but virtually every cartoonist does exactly that when a syndicate demands ownership before agreeing to sell the strip to newspapers.

Every artist learns through imitation, but I rather doubt the aim of these things is artistic development. I assume they're either homages or satiric riffs, and are not intended to be taken too seriously as works in their own right. Otherwise I should be talking to a copyright lawyer.

If you've ever compared a film to a novel it's based on, you know the novel gets bludgeoned. It's inevitable, because different media have different strengths and needs, and when you make a movie, the movie's needs get served.

Obviously the great thing about this job is the complete freedom of the schedule. So long as I meet the deadline, they don't care when I work or how I work.

Your fingernails are a joke, you've got no fangs, you can't see at night, your pink hides are ridiculous, your reflexes are nil, and you don't even have tails! Of course people aren't content! ... Now if tigers weren't content, that would be something to wonder about.

I don't enjoy lettering very much, but that's the way I write and that belongs in the strip because the strip is a reflection of me.

I've always been a huge fan of fantasy and adventure, putting yourself in someone else's shoes, I'm sure that's why I'm an actor. It's why I played with action figures as a kid, that's why I wrote and drew and read comics as a kid.

I'm a misunderstood genius.

Animation, by necessity, is a team sport, and the fewer people with input into my work, the better I like it.

Books are almost always better than the movies made from them, because there are things books do well and things movies do well, but usually those things don't overlap: the same with comics and animation.

In a comic strip, you can suggest motion and time, but it's very crude compared to what an animator can do. I have a real awe for good animation.

I'm pulling out different aspects of my personality in writing each character and, if I'm doing my job well, I'm being true to the situation and true to the character.

What I try to do in writing any character is to put myself in his position.

We consume everything like potato chips. In this environment, I suspect the cartoonist's connection with readers is likely to be superficial and fleeting, unless he taps into some fervent special interest niche. And that audience, almost by definition, will be tiny.

If you're a painter, it's simply taken for granted that you'll spend a lot of time in museums studying great paintings, but if you're a cartoonist, it used to be very hard to see an original cartoon drawing.

Each kind of story has its own problems in writing, but my main concern really is to keep the reader on his toes, or to keep the strip unpredictable. I try to achieve some sort of balance between the two that keeps the reader wondering what's going to happen next and be surprised.

If you've got more ambiguous characters or stock stereotypes, the plastic comes through and they don't work as well.

I wasn't having any luck getting accepted anyway and it forced me to re-examine what it was that I really wanted to do. In my experience in political cartooning, I was never one of those people who read the headlines and foams at the mouth with rabid opinion that I've just got to get down on paper.

Saturday morning cartoons do that now, where they develop the toy and then draw the cartoon around it, and the result is the cartoon is a commercial for the toy and the toy is a commercial for the cartoon. The same thing's happening now in comic strips; it's just another way to get the competitive edge. You saturate all the different markets and allow each other to advertise the other, and it's the best of all possible worlds. You can see the financial incentive to work that way. I just think it's to the detriment of integrity in comic strip art.