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Here are four tips about the creative process that Watterson reveals in the film:
01
You Have To Lose Yourself
In Your Work
Create For Yourself
“My comic strip was the way that I explored the world
and my own perceptions and thoughts. So to switch off
the job I would have had to switch off my head. So,
yes, the work was insanely intense, but that was the
whole point of doing it.”
02
“Quite honestly I tried to forget that there was an
audience. I wanted to keep the strip feeling small and
intimate as I did it, so my goal was just to make my
wife laugh. After that, I’d put it out, and the public can
take it or leave it.”
03
Make It Beautiful
04
Every Medium Has Power
“My advice has always been to draw cartoons for the
love of it, and concentrate on the quality and be true to
yourself. Also try to remember that people have better
things to do than read your work. So for heaven’s
sake, try to entice them with some beauty and fun.”
“A comic strip takes just a few seconds to read, but over
the years, it creates a surprisingly deep connection
with readers. I think that incremental aspect, that
unpretentious daily aspect, is a source of power.”
What could be more inconsequential than a comic strip? Four or five static panels, minimal movement, a quick punchline.
Yet Watterson (and many other comic strip artists) have managed to create incredible, meaningful worlds, worlds that are
genuinely important to the people who read them. There’s no such thing as a small medium.
Dan Nosowitz is a freelance writer and editor who
has written for Popular Science, The Awl, Gizmodo,
Fast Company, BuzzFeed, and elsewhere. He holds
an undergraduate degree from McGill University and
currently lives in Brooklyn, because he has a beard and
glasses and that’s the law.