I expect many of the comments will be adulation for Bill Watterson. I know he always gets unending praise, and while he did do many great things, I found his latter C&H strips to be him putting his rants in the mouth of a 6-year-old boy, where they no longer belonged.
Really, look at some of the later strips. Calvin is frequently frowning or complaining about something. The earlier strips were more care-free and he acts more like a 6-year-old albeit with a ridiculously rich vocabulary.
Good for him to quit when he was obviously no longer enjoying the process. Got to give him that.
Well, they weren't what I signed up for when I was a kid. I wanted to see a kid having fun being a kid, travelling through space and riding dinosaurs. Not a surly grownup talking through a kid.
In a way Calvin was growing up and becoming a more introspective and thereby pessimistic person growing into young adulthood, leaving his carefree days behind. At least that is what I took from it. Then the last panel, if I remember correctly, was an ode to the carefree days of childhood.
Some aspects of the strip became repetitive, but visually they became stronger, especially in the sunday strips after he got free hands to break up the frames. So I suspect he realized he had reached the limits of the newspaper strip medium. Going further would require changing medium to something like comic book format. He did produce some childrens book formats.
Really, look at some of the later strips. Calvin is frequently frowning or complaining about something. The earlier strips were more care-free and he acts more like a 6-year-old albeit with a ridiculously rich vocabulary.
Good for him to quit when he was obviously no longer enjoying the process. Got to give him that.