Bill Watterson Speach vs Gavin Aung Than Cartoon Thing

                The Huffington Post posted, along with the rest of the internet, a comic written by cartoonist Gavin Aung Than that illustrated some words from a commencement speech Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin and Hobbs, gave in 1990. The post was posted and reposted across the internet and up the lawn until it came across my front door. Here is a link. http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/08/27/bill_watterson_s_cartoonist_s_advice_in_comic_form_by_zen_pencils_aka_gavin.html

I read it. It is illustrated in the style of Calvin and Hobbs, and the words were so good, I just got excited. I thought how great it was that someone understood me. Someone knew that I was an artist. Someone knew that the one and only intelligent thing for me to do was to quit my job and bask in my own glow, as an artist, casting aside the bonds of meaningless stuff I have to do and free myself up to do the one thing I was meant to do, and bask in my own glow as an artist. I showed the comic to an artist friend of mine thinking that person would be just as enraptured as I was after reading it. They were not. Instead of expressing the fount of blessing and self abasement before the wisdom of the comic that I was personally feeling, this person made a convincing argument that the text was somewhat manipulated by the illustration. They thought comic presented a message entirely different than what Watterson had communicated in his speech. They even seemed a bit miffed by the subject. My curiosity was perked. I investigated.

                I printed the comic, and a copy of the speech from 1990. The speech, by the way, was a commencement speech entitled Some Thoughts on the Real World by One Who Glimpsed It and Fled, given by Bill Watterson to Kenyon College on May 20, 1990. Here is a link. http://web.mit.edu/jmorzins/www/C-H-speech.html

I read the comic. Then, I read the speech. The speech took longer to read. I read the comic. Then I read the speech, and I did that until I had a few thoughts.

First, I see what Gavin Aung Than did with the cartoon, and it is good work. Bill tells his own story throughout the speech. His story is the source of his credibility after all. Bill talks about his time at Kenyon. He talks about his spending hours at a stretch painting Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam” on the ceiling of his dorm his sophomore year. Then he talks about his smugness at graduation over the cushy job he had lined up. He talks about his complete failure after college as a political cartoonist, and about his time spent working for an ad agency, time he hated and eventually left. The cartoon picks up Bill’s story at the point when he is unhappily working for an ad agency, and over that point of the story he puts some of the best lines of the speech. The speech is quotable start to finish, but these lines are the lines three fourths of the way through the speech where according to the rules of rhetoric he is really preach’n it. The lines go like this:

 “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. Ambition is only understood if it’s to rise to the top of some imaginary ladder of success. Someone who takes an undemanding job because it affords him the time to pursue other interests and activities is considered a flake. A person who abandons a career in order to stay home and raise children is considered not to be living up to his potential-as if a job title and salary are the sold measure of human worth.

You’ll be told in a hundred ways, some subtle and some not, to keep climbing, and never be satisfied with where you are, who you are, and what you’re doing. There are a million ways to sell yourself out, and I guarantee you’ll hear about them.

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.”

These words are filled with an illustrated story of a man who leaves the ad agency to do a job he likes, and raise a family. The last panel shows the male protagonist riding down a hill in a little red wagon in the Calvin and Hobbs characteristic manner.

I think that what Gavin did good work, and I think the piece follows a logical formula. I also see where some people would feel attacked. What if my idea of the good life IS to stay with my corporate job? What if I’m not the kind of guy that is brilliant and creates a million dollar character idea? What if I am happy doing what I do already? What if I’ve been a starving artist, and starved? What if cream rises to the top, and I’m whey? How then, do I have a fulfilled life? Eh?

The trouble with this cartoon is the same trouble with most communication of our age. It is just too brief to contain a full and defendable thought. (More on that later) The lines in this comic are great, but they came at the end of a great story filled with little details.

The full speech had a much more uplifting message than the cartoon, because the speech spoke of cultivating a space of mental playfulness. The speech focused on developing a place for art to happen inside you, and following that place. Circumstances and jobs be damned. Right? The speech was about everything that is great about not having a clue what you are, or where you are, or what exactly it is you are doing. It was about doing a thing because the thing you are doing brings you joy, and letting that be the end of it. The speech was about playing, and the complications that arise from making a life of play. At the end of the speech, a person is likely to feel completely prepared to curelessly meander through the next stage in their life with conviction. The speech was not about sticking it to the man, or being the caricature of an artist. It was an invocation to diligently seek a life you like, just because you like it.

So… though I could go on for days, I think the cartoon was a valid representation of the speech if only for one reason. This is the reason. The last frame was of the protagonist flying down a hill in a wagon in the Calvin and Hobbs signature fashion. I’ve already mentioned that once. I know, but I want to point out that the last frame is of the protagonist playing. Bill Watterson’s speech was about having the integrity to live a life of play. The Cartoon works. I like it. Go Team.