A little backstory on this; when I was a kid, i first found Calvin and Hobbes through a collection of books that I could buy at my school book fair. My parents recommended them, so I decided to buy those two books, and then I read them all night long. And then I did that the night after that.

And the night after that.

When I was a kid, I had stuffed animals galore. I would act out large scale epics with all my stuffed animals, because even then movies from Pixar made me want to make movies and tell stories (yes, that does mean there are videos of me playing with a shit ton of stuffed animals). And then…

Nag's Documentary-a-Day in December: Day Twelve

Is the over-whelming majority of the film simply talking heads gushing about how much they love "Calvin & Hobbes"? Yes. But if you love "Calvin & Hobbes" as much as I do, then it won't bother you much at all. The most interesting parts were near the middle of the film, regarding Watterson's decision to refuse any licencing deals for the strip [so, no Hobbes dolls or Calvin lunchboxes, basically] in order to preserve the integrity of [and complete control over] his work. He didn't want his art distorted by commercialism, a la "Garfield" or, even worse, "Peanuts" [we've all seen the groan-inducing MetLife insurance ads]. Watterson comes off as an enigmatic and brilliant introvert, and…

Thoughts about Dear Mr. Waterson:

- Don't be fooled by the title, this is not a movie about the cartoonist Bill Watterson. As a mild recluse, he does not appear or contribute anything to this film. Instead, it is a documentary about the fandom of Calvin and Hobbes.

- This is really a film that was made just because a man wants to talk about how much he loves Calvin and Hobbes The first and last twenty minutes is just the director stating why he thinks it is such a great comic. He really really loves Calvin and Hobbes- that's the thesis of this movie.

-The director/ main character in this doc is a thirty-ish year old man with the…

Dear Mr. Watterson is a slight and light hearted documentary about the former daily comic strip Calvin and Hobbes and its now recluse creator, Bill Watterson. Its a love letter to the comic pure and simple and that is fine with me because of the memories the film provided of hovering over the collections that were handed down to me by my dad.

Calvin and Hobbes is a comic that transcends both time and generations, and it shows by the wide variety of people that are interviewed. I'm in no way similar to any situation of anyone else in the film, yet because I'm such a fan and am familiar with the comics, the bond and relatability is still there.…

As a huge fan of Calvin and Hobbes (really, who isn't?) I was a bit disappointed by this documentary. It was hagiography, repetitive, and only a few decent insights through the whole thing. It was cool to listen to Berke Breathed of Bloom County, and the guy in charge of the syndicate, and a few others, but there was just way to many people saying the same thing to keep it interesting. The few detractors on things like merchandising didn't get enough screen time to make their case so it was set up to agree with Watterson. Watterson himself doesn't appear in the doc, but you do get to see some originals of the scrips with white-out and all. That…

I love Calvin and Hobbes. Is was important to both me and my brother growing up. I would always want to go into my big brothers room because his wall was filled with laminated strips from Calvin and Hobbes.

Not a lot is really public knowledge about Bill Watterson, so I was extremely interested to watch a documentary about him and the impact he had on others. That is not what this film is.

Dear Mr. Watterson is about a group of creators and artists getting together and using Calvin and Hobbes and its fame as a platform to talk about the good old days of comics and how newspapers as an industry are dying. Even if I somewhat agree…

A documentary looking at the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip and it's reclusive creator Bill Watterson.

As well as a nice bit of personal nostalgia it was interesting to see how Calvin and Hobbes evolved, how it was experienced by the American audience and how the US syndication process both influenced and was influenced by Watterson's creation.

Growing up in the UK meant I came to Calvin and Hobbes later and differently from the American public. The strip was syndicated each day in newspapers across America between 1985 and 1995 but I somehow came across, and still own, all the collected editions.

It was therefore fascinating to see which were the first and last strips (I recognised them but never…

Calvin and Hobbes has been one of my favorite things on the planet since I first discovered it in the newspaper as a kid roughly thirty years ago. It was something I looked forward to every day (especially Sundays), and I am fascinated that it is still as beloved as it is by such a wide and varying audience, more than twenty years since it was last drawn. This simple documentary may not be a groundbreaking work, but it is a love letter to the strip, as well as the comic medium itself. It doesn't shed much new light onto its subject, or Bill Watterson himself, but it is nice to get the perspectives of many different cartoonists, between peers…

Last November marked the 35th anniversary of Calvin & Hobbes, which inspired me to reread the comic's entire ten-year run. I finished on Sunday, and I have to say, all 3,151 strips hold up beautifully. C&H debuted with its concept and humor fully-formed, then just kept getting smarter and more artistically ambitious as it ran. Bill Watterson got so good in those final years that every Sunday strip—practically every panel of every Sunday strip—was suitable for framing.

I could talk at length about my nostalgia for C&H, how Calvin's outdoor adventures evoke the Ohio landscape where I grew up, and Watterson's weird status as the J.D. Salinger of the cartooning world. But you know what? It would probably get pretty boring…