Or so says Bill Watterson. You know, the guy who wrote and drew Calvin and Hobbes. Which is a comic. Which was published in many best-selling books. One of these books reprinting his comics (hmmm, what would a good name for a book of comics be?), is The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book. In this book of comic reprints (dang we really need a convenient name for books that have comics in them), he has provided readers with essays to explain his creative process, and commentary on various selected strips from its first ten years. On a strip reprinted on page 171, Calvin complains that his mother doesn’t understand comic books:
Calvin: She doesn’t realize that comic books deal with serious issues of the day. Today’s Superheroes face tough moral dilemmas. Comic books arent just escapist fantasy. They’re sophisticated social critiques.
Hobbes: Is Amazon Girl’s super power the ability to squeeze that figure into that suit?
Calvin: Nah, they all can do that.
Mr. Watterson’s commentary regarding the strip: 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.
Later on, a strip has Calvin and Hobbes discussing how comic strips are considered “low” art, while a painting of a comic strip panel hanging in a museum would be “high” art.
His commentary on this strip: “I would suggest that it’s not the medium , but the quality of perception and expression, that determines the significance of art.”
Earlier, he details exactly why he needed sabbaticals, the fights he had over merchandising and the battle for a less restrictive Sunday format. He resented the very rigid panel arrangements of Sundays, and wanted to be able to arrange the panels, or disregard them altogether, as he saw fit. All of this in the name of artistic integrity, because newspaper comics, though often vapid and unimaginative, have such great potential for showing people a new perspective on important ideas.
One of the examples he gives of the terrible work burden was the creation of new stories, lavishly illustrated, and freed from restrictive panel arrangements, that he wrote and drew to create added value to the Calvin and Hobbes treasuries. Multipage, illustrated stories, featuring cartoon characters, with free-form panel design. If one were to take such a comic story, and put a book cover on it, one might be tempted to call it a comic story book.
But it wouldn’t be a comic book, because those are incredibly stupid.