by Jake Bourgeois, Contributing Writer
I’ve always had a soft spot for animation. More years than not, at least a couple of animated features find their way onto my top 10 list. So, I’m setting out to shine a light on some films that may have passed you by. The idea with Animation Celebration is to take a look at some underseen gems — so no Toy Story or Frozen here.
Let’s get started.
Last month, I teased we’d be covering something unlike anything we’d covered before on this series, and we are.
This month, I’ve got a graphic novel to recommend. To break rank from a movie, TV show, or video game for a SiftPop review (outside of Alice’s One Stop Pop series, which you should be reading), takes something special. Bill Watterson putting out a new work would definitely qualify.
If the name doesn’t ring a bell, Watterson is the author and illustrator of the classic comic strip, Calvin and Hobbes, following a young boy’s adventures with his stuffed tiger. From a very young age, my mom passed her comic book down to me. I’ve expanded my collection from her initial gift and have read every strip at least once. It was a cornerstone of helping me develop my sense of humor. Heck, I still find as an adult that I vibe with Calvin’s thoughts about deadlines. It was more than just humor and imaginative drawings. There was always commentary, and that remains as sharp now as when it was first published.
My introduction came after the 1995 cessation of the strip, and since then, Watterson has faded from public life. He’s incredibly private, with no real interviews or appearances. I couldn’t even tell you what he looked or sounded like. Unlike the Peanuts gang, there’s no merchandise and no TV shows — only a Robot Chicken parody and those knockoff stickers of the kid peeing on things.
So when I learned that he was coming out with a new project described by the publisher as “fairytale for adults,” and in collaboration with John Kascht, it was big news, and something I had to check out.
The story of The Mysteries is quite simple and not very long, listed at 72 pages with just a line or two on one page, and artwork to match on the opposite. Simply, it’s about a people who live in fear of “the Mysteries” until a quest to capture one ends in success. More on the story later.
However, as a piece of animated art, everything, from the book itself to the pictures, is quite gorgeous. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Black, white, and the shades of gray in between, it lacks some of the more outlandish colors of some of the Sunday strips, particularly the adventures of Spaceman Spiff, but it works for the creepy atmosphere the images are trying to evoke. Being largely unfamiliar with Kascht, but with the background knowledge that he does caricatures, you can see a bit of that with how some features are exaggerated, though even that is toned down a bit. The way the drawings are focused is interesting to me. They are styled like a photo, where bokeh exists. There’s a focus and a blurred background to every piece. It worked to give a feeling of authenticity to the world.
While I found the work interesting enough upon first read, it was when I watched a video where the publisher gives insight into how this particular work came about that got me utterly fascinated with it. With the book being so short, and the video coming in at 15 minutes, I’d venture to say it’s almost a required companion behind the scenes piece. Allow me to illustrate why using the artists in their own words.
The creative process for the art that went with Watterson’s story was unlike any I’ve ever heard described. With Calvin and Hobbes being such a singular vision, the fact that the story came to Watterson with no ideas for any accompanying art (so that it subsequently sat in his desk for years) was fascinating. The particular collaboration with two very opposing artists’ style made for an interesting case study.
In the video, Watterson described the process of the two artists working together by saying, “It’s like driving a car with two steering wheels,” and that they purposely collaborated without any person leading the artistic side.
“I wanted a sparring partner — someone whose ideas and skills would challenge my own,” Watterson said. “…neither one of us would get the final say on any decision. Either one of us could veto anything for any reason, or even pull the plug on the whole project.”
While Kascht enjoyed dissecting his subjects at the most minuscule level and putting great detail into his drawings, Watterson preferred quick sketches that were based more in feeling that the actual look of something.
“Our collaboration wasn’t a matter of compromise, so much as collision. Over and over, we hurled ourselves at each other. My detailed realism smashing into Bill’s stripped-down primitivism,” Kascht said.
With their differences, the duo said they had nothing to show for the first year of work, but don’t let the pull quotes about their incompatibility clickbait you — there’s more to this story. Eventually, they tried to smash the styles together that they found the incompatibility worked, best described as a “collage” of their two styles. Even the way they talked about the art is unique, with the pieces, though two-dimensional, being described as “constructed art.” Having seen, as the visuals that played over the audio, the work they collectively put in with models and paints and the detail put into sculpting the people, both the collage and construction are visible within the pictures presented in the book. At times, you can clearly see in the background or setting, the mix of the two styles. Where at first, I was just focusing on how different it looked to anything I’d seen from Watterson before, with a better understanding of the process that was the collaboration, that odd marriage is more readily apparent.
That’s before you get to the contradiction they describe in the role the art was to play. As discussed, there’s not much of a narrative. No hero of the story, no real characters for the reader to follow either. The pictures take up half the real estate in the book, and the goal was for it to tell half the story, but at the same time, let people make their own mind up about what the story was saying.
“We were trying to make pictures that didn’t show things for a story that didn’t say things,” Watterson said.
It’s a near impossible paradox to balance, but they somehow did it. It’s what Kascht describes as a Rorschach test of a story where different people get different things out of it. It’s a very philosophical approach, not just to the writing, but to the art, too. That insight from the video made me immediately want to go back and examine things closer.
On first read, I thought that it was a commentary on climate change. On giving it a second read through, the nagging thoughts in the back of my mind about how that metaphor didn’t fully fit moved more to the forefront, and my mind jumped around to other possibilities. I suspect, like they hoped, different people will see different things, depending on their own experience.
The Mysteries is nothing like what Watterson earned his reputation on, and I suspect that there will be a segment of readers that come away disappointed. However, at the very least, it’s a fascinating example of collaboration in the truest sense — and one on the surface that had no business working. That would be interesting enough, but I have a sneaking suspicion that this will be an interesting tale to revisit periodically to see how what I take away from it shifts.
I’m excited to continue to geek out on some great animated work you may not have had a chance to catch. Next month, we’ll be back to movies, though I’ve yet to decide on the direction.
You can read more from Jake Bourgeois, and follow him on Twitter and Letterboxd