By Chuck Graham, TucsonStage.com
If you love the cartoon characters Calvin and Hobbs, don’t miss the celebratory documentary “Dear Mr. Watterson” by 33-year-old filmmaker Joel Allen Schroeder. He makes it clear from the outset his adoration for the adventurous six-year-old Calvin and that fanciful tiger pal Hobbes.
Screening Sunday (Nov. 10) at 5 p.m., the film follows the filmmaker’s exploration of the northeastern Ohio roots of the strip’s creator Bill Watterson, his drawings in several of his Chagrin Falls high school publications in the mid 1970s and his subsequent aversion to publicity as the comic strip became an international favorite.
Interviewing several prominent cartoonists such as Berkeley Breathed (“Bloom County,” “Opus”), Schroeder establishes Watterson’s status next to such past giants as Walt Kelly (Pogo and his friends) and Charles Schulz (“Peanuts”).
Then Schroeder examines Watterson’s idealism and determination to avoid letting Calvin and Hobbs be commercialized to death, as has happened to the Peanuts characters and the ever-smirking cat Garfield.
Historically, “Calvin and Hobbes” ran from 1985 to 1995 when Watterson announced he was bringing the strip to a close, determined it should never be continued by anyone else. Watterson himself has chosen to live in seclusion, as well.
Yet, the popularity of the boy and his stuffed companion has never waned. Sales of the strips re-published in soft cover books remains strong as they are discovered by younger generations of readers in their public school libraries.
The origin for that title is revealed in a scene after the credits role. Be sure to stick around for that.
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