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This week on the show we’re talking with Dear Mr. Watterson director (and adult Calvin look-a-like) Joel Allen Schroeder about the universal love for Calvin and Hobbes as well as the long, strange trip the Kickstarted movie took to find theaters. Plus, Vanity Fair’s Katey Rich and I debate whether The Hunger Games should be criticized for being a rip-0ff of Battle Royale and Geoff waxes philosophical (and structural) about the right way to approach foreign remakes. You should follow Katey Rich (@kateyrich), the show (@brokenprojector), Geoff (@drgmlatulippe) and Scott (@scottmbeggs) on Twitter for more on a daily basis. And, as always, if you like the show (or hate it with seething fervor), please help us out with a review. Download Episode #41 Directly Or subscribe Through iTunes On This Week’s Show: Real or Magic? [0:00 - 1:30] Oldboy’s Hammer [1:30 - 19:15] Let’s Go Exploring with Joel Allen Schroeder [19:15 - 33:30] Debate to the Death! [33:30 - 45:30] Heroes...

Title: Dear Mr. Watterson: An Exploration of Calvin & Hobbes Director: Joel Allen Schroeder A big-hearted but overly fawning documentary about the impact of the popular newspaper comic strip of the same name, “Dear Mr. Watterson: An Exploration of Calvin & Hobbes” is a fans’ document that can’t see the forest for the trees. The success of first-time director Joel Allen Schroeder’s film — Kickstarted by more than 2,000 online benefactors — lies in the many other cartoonists he corrals to talk about the hermetic Bill Watterson. The problem is that Schroeder has nary an idea of how to structure his movie, or push beyond surface intrigue to more deeply [ Read More ]

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A new daily comic strip appeared in papers across the country on November 18, 1985, and while it ended just over ten years later it remains in the hearts, minds, and memories of fans worldwide. Bill Watterson‘s “Calvin & Hobbes” introduced readers to the world of six year old Calvin and his best friend/stuffed tiger Hobbes, and it never looked back. The imaginative and precocious boy captures Hobbes in a tiger trap baited with a tuna fish sandwich, obviously, and for the next decade the world shared in the duo’s playful adventures and heartfelt interactions. There hasn’t been a new installment in almost twenty years, but many fans continue to extol the virtues of what some consider to be the greatest comic strip ever. Joel Allen Schroeder is one of those fans, and while he beats himself up for having not discovered the strip until 1991, he recognizes it as a beloved companion from his youth that...

Dear Mr. Watterson

Directed by Joel Allen Schroeder

USA, 2013

Joel Allen Schroeder’s documentary Dear Mr. Watterson is billed as “An Exploration of ‘Calvin and Hobbes,’” but it might be better described as an adoration of the famed newspaper comic. Not only does every person who appears in the film love “Calvin and Hobbes,” but they love it above all other examples of the form, and view it as the most formative part of their lives. “Calvin and Hobbes” is a masterful work, so the adoration is well-deserved, but such an outpouring of love makes for an uninteresting documentary.

Rather like the odious Salinger from earlier this year, Schroeder has the problem that his author is reclusive in the extreme (in fact, Watterson might be more antisocial than J.D. Salinger was). So he deserves credit, at least, for getting everything right that Salinger got wrong. This picture is not at all oppressive with its adoration,...

In Dear Mr. Watterson, fellow comic-strip artists, eerily adoring fans and apparently serious comic-strip critics pay tribute to Bill Watterson, an enigmatic man whose sly, dexterous mind and remarkably precise hand are responsible for “Calvin and Hobbes,” a brilliant, widely-read syndicated newspaper strip that haunted the pages of America’s most hallowed dailies from the early 1980s through the mid-to-late ’90s. The film, Joel Allen Schroeder’s first, attempts to earnestly and without irony portray the ostensibly profound impact the “Calvin and Hobbes” strip has had on the lives of peculiar subset of American youth. In an era in which the form truly reached a […]...

In Dear Mr. Watterson, fellow comic-strip artists, eerily adoring fans and apparently serious comic-strip critics pay tribute to Bill Watterson, an enigmatic man whose sly, dexterous mind and remarkably precise hand are responsible for “Calvin and Hobbes,” a brilliant, widely-read syndicated newspaper strip that haunted the pages of America’s most hallowed dailies from the early 1980s through the mid-to-late ’90s. The film, Joel Allen Schroeder’s first, attempts to earnestly and without irony portray the ostensibly profound impact the “Calvin and Hobbes” strip has had on the lives of peculiar subset of American youth. In an era in which the form truly reached a […]...

Plot: It's been 18 years since Calvin and Hobbes left newspapers, but the comic strip's fervent fan following is only growing. Filmmaker Joel Schroeder goes exploring to see what makes this world so magical for so many. Review: There are films that are not made with objective viewing in mind. Sometimes movies are produced for a very passionate and specific audience. Dear Mr. Watterson, unsurprisingly, is made with loving admiration for the devoted fanbase of Calvin and Hobbes. To call...

In 2007, Dear Mr. Watterson was nothing more than a passion project director Joel Schroeder worked on between freelance editing jobs. "Our budget was zero, so it was whatever I could afford to spend every given month," Schroeder tells The Hollywood Reporter. "Then in fall of 2009, we heard about this thing called Kickstarter." Kickstarter had only gone live in April of that year and Schroeder, like everyone, was new to the crowdfunding world: "At the time, we naively thought the longer we let it run the better the chances we'd have of meeting our goal." Schroeder

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From filmmaker Joel Allen Schroeder, the documentary Dear Mr. Watterson is an exploration of why Bill Watterson and his Calvin & Hobbes comic strip has made such an impact on so many readers and fellow cartoonists, and why it still means so much to people today. Having first appeared in newspaper comics across the country in 1985, millions of readers fell in love with the young Calvin and his beloved tiger Hobbes, and all of the adventures they took together. At the film’s press day, Joel Allen Schroeder spoke to Collider for this exclusive interview about the process of making his first documentary about a subject that he personally loves, why he chose to focus on the impact the strip has had on other people instead of trying to seek out the elusive Watterson, how he lined up the interviews that are featured, just how much footage he had to edit down to the final film,...

I didn’t read comics as a kid. At all. Ever. Then, one year, someone gave my brother a copy of The Indispensable Calvin and Hobbes. I remember picking it up, idly, when I was bored, and getting hooked. The transmogrifier, the red wagon rides, the school scenes… Calvin was something I saw within myself, and something I wanted to be, and something that showed me a whole universe of possibilities waiting for me.

Dear Mr. Watterson, a documentary by Joel Allen Schroeder, plumbs the depths of the influence Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin and Hobbes, has had on readers, comic writers, and comic book publishers. Watterson does not appear in the documentary. He is famously unfriendly to the media. Instead, Schroeder mostly uses talking head interviews with fans and industry professionals to explore what Calvin and Hobbes meant and what the man behind it had to tell us. He...

The first thing to know about Dear Mr. Watterson, Joel Allen Schroeder’s documentary about Calvin & Hobbes creator Bill Watterson, is that it’s not really a movie about Bill Watterson. No, it’s a movie about Calvin & Hobbes. That may sound like a pointlessly subtle distinction, but it’s an important one. Watterson notoriously shuns the spotlight: He wasn’t a very public person when he was writing and drawing Calvin from 1985 to 1995, and, now that it’s over, he’s even less so.This poses something of a problem for Schroeder, a longtime devotee of the comic strip about a young dreamer and his imaginary (or maybe real, but just unseen by others) tiger. He doesn’t want to go down the road of recluse-spotting, trying to dig into Watterson’s private life — sort of a variation on what Shane Salerno did (awkwardly) in Salinger. Instead, being the loyal,...

Who needs J.D. Salinger as a cinematic subject when there’s Bill Watterson? The famed cartoonist has led a reclusive life in small town Ohio since he retired his comic strip Calvin & Hobbes, about a precocious six-year-old boy and his tiger companion, after a hugely successful ten year run. Unlike most of his contemporaries, he steadfastly refused to license his creations for commercial purposes, in the process walking away from an estimated hundreds of millions of dollars. As its affectionate title would suggest, Joel Allen Schroeder’s documentary Dear Mr. Watterson is no attempt at an expose a la

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"Calvin and Hobbes" fans will be thrilled to hear of all of the attention surrounding the iconic and beloved comic strip this week. To coincide with the release of "Dear Mr. Watterson" the much praised documentary about the comic's creator Bill Watterson, in select theaters and on VOD on Friday, iTunes has made the documentary's soundtrack and the entire "Calvin and Hobbes" collection available to download here.  You can also pre-order "Dear Mr. Watterson" in the iTunes store. Accompanying the films' release and soundtrack, GoComics appropriately decided to supply a free mobile app and website download of the entire "Calvin and Hobbes" collection. View the site here and the mobile app here. "Dear Mr. Watterson" delves into the creation of the "Calvin and Hobbes" comics, and the inspiration that they brought to aspiring cartoonists in the industry today. Director Joel Allen Schroeder isn't so much interested in exploring the life of infamous cartoonist,...

Dear Mr. Watterson illustrates what can happen when a passionate young filmmaker decides to put together a documentary that pays tribute to one of his childhood totems. A warm salute to the acclaimed comic strip Calvin and Hobbes—and, tangentially, its creator Bill Watterson—the full-length debut of director Joel Allen Schroeder does an impressive job gathering plenty of talking-head interviews from notable individuals in the comics world, although not from the press-shy Watterson himself. But even if you share Schroeder’s abiding love for this strip about a troublemaking boy and his loyal tiger, you may still wish that he hadn’t approached...

"I'm not interested in the man himself," says filmmaker Joel Allen Schroeder at the start of "Dear Mr. Watterson," a tender and sincere ode the legacy of the reclusive creator of iconic comic strip "Calvin & Hobbes," who hung up his hat in 1995. Instead, Schroeder endeavors to find the man in his work. Yet over the course of this genial homage to the childhood exploits of a boy and his tiger, Watterson's intentions loom large, partly because they're opposition to the strip's lasting popularity. If all roads lead to Watterson, they also cogently illustrate why he blocked them off. Though he retired to a small town in Ohio and has remain out of the public eye for 18 years, Watterson's voluminous output speaks volumes. As Schroeder points out in his voiceover, book-length collections of the strip have sold 45 million copies domestically, which leaves plenty of superfans for the movie's director to sift through: To some readers,...

It's possible to love a work of art, a piece of music, even a comic strip, to the point of near speechlessness. That's the problem with Joel Allen Schroeder's heartfelt but largely inarticulate documentary Dear Mr. Watterson, which tries to capture the almost mystical appeal of Bill Watterson's newspaper strip Calvin & Hobbes, which ran from 1985 to 1995. When Watterson felt he'd taken the strip and its characters — a spiky-haired six-year-old boy and his real live stuffed tiger sidekick — as far as he could, he retired and slipped out of the limelight for good. What's more, Watterson refused (and, in his retirement, continues to refuse) to license his characters for any commercial purpose. Fans of the strip, millions of them, have felt bereft, left without ev...

Calvin & Hobbes documentary Dear Mr Watterson has released a new trailer.

Filmmaker Joel Allen Schroeder's film explores the history and impact of Bill Watterson's beloved comic strip.

The documentary features a host of cartoonists and celebrity fans including Berkeley Breathed (Bloom County), Bill Amend (Foxtrot), Stephan Pastis (Pearls Before Swine) and Seth Green (Robot Chicken, Family Guy) discussing Calvin & Hobbes.

Watterson retired the strip on New Year's Eve 1995. He recently gave a rare interview to Mental Floss.

Two pieces of original Watterson artwork sold for record sums at auction in the past year.

Dear Mr Watterson was part-funded through Kickstarter.

It will debut in Us cinemas and VOD on November 15. There have been no details of a UK release.

Here's a Kickstarter story that everyone can enjoy: director Joel Allen Schroeder's modest request for funds for his Calvin & Hobbes documentary was a resounding success, and the finished result is almost upon us. With that in mind, a new trailer for Dear Mr Watterson has just arrived online, to give you a fuzzy glow on this dreary Monday morning.It isn't, to be honest, terribly different to the previous clip from a few months ago, sharing the page-flicking beginning, the We Were Pirates music and the talking-heads format. But it's been fed through the cardboard box transmogrifier, changing some of the clips and quotes, while still doing the same job of sharing the infectious enthusiasm for Bill Watterson's comic strip of everyone involved.If you're new here - and you've been seriously missing out if you are - Calvin and Hobbes was a syndicated newspaper comic strip, involving...

Director Joel Allen Schroeder explores the immense popularity of the Calvin & Hobbes comic strip in Dear Mr. Watterson. Gravitas Ventures has released the first trailer for this upcoming documentary, which features Calvin & Hobbes fans such as Seth Green and author Berkeley Breathed, and explores why creator Bill Watterson retired the strip in 1995. Dear Mr. Watterson hits theaters on November 15.

Calvin & Hobbes took center stage immediately when it appeared in newspaper comics across the country in 1985. The funny pages were a big part of popular culture, and it was hard to find a comics reader who didn't like Calvin & Hobbes.

A decade later, when Bill Watterson retired his strip, millions of readers felt the void left by the sudden departure of Calvin and his beloved tiger, and many fans would never find a satisfactory replacement. In his retirement, as he did during his career, Mr. Watterson has steadfastly declined to license...

Calvin & Hobbes is one of the greatest comic strips ever put to paper (or digital memory), and if you don.t agree with that, then I.m going to send Spaceman Spiff over to blast you with his Atomic Napalm Neutralizer. The impact that the adventurous and introspective strip has on people is still growing, and may be stronger now than ever before, since the nostalgic fondness of older readers is now competing with a rabid appreciation for the strip from fans that weren.t even born when creator Bill Watterson surprisingly decided to pull the plug back in 1995. The above trailer for Joel Allen Schroeder.s upcoming documentary Dear Mr. Watterson expresses that all-encompassing fandom pretty well, and I.d like to hop into my time machine/cardboard box) and shoot forward to the film.s theatrical and VOD release date of November 15. Schroeder, who has no relation to...

The best news of the summer was that Dear Mr. Watterson would be seeing theaters. Joel Schroeder‘s thorough ode to the best comic strip ever made had been a glint in all of our eyes for years, so it was a massive relief to know that we’d all finally be able to see it. We got a teaser trailer along with that glorious news, and now there’s another full trailer featuring talking heads all gushing about Bill Watterson’s immaculate work. Wrap yourself in the sheer joy of it all, and get ready to pull your omnibus collection down from the shelf:...

Calvin & Hobbes is the greatest comic strip ever written. I grew up reading it, and to this day, it makes me laugh. Not only was it a great a funny comic, but it also had messages and life lessons that we can all learn from.

Today we bring you an official trailer for a documentary that centers on the strip. It comes from first time filmmaker Joel Allen Schroeder, and it's called Dear Mr. Watterson. The doc chronicles the impact that the comic strip created by author and illustrator Bill Watterson had on the world. It features interviews with several famous illustrators, actors, and other fans about the role these characters played in their lives.

The comic ran in syndication from 1985 to 1995, when Watterson ended its run on New Year’s Eve. Watterson has been extremely protective of his work and has kept it away from potentially lucrative licensing deals,...

"You just see a master at his craft..." This will bring a smile to your face. A second trailer has debuted for Dear Mr. Watterson, the documentary about the legacy of Calvin & Hobbes, the comic strip created by Bill Watterson that remains one of the most beloved comics around. We featured the very first trailer for this doc back in July when it was about to hit film festivals after being successfully Kickstarter funded and finished. With the film's release coming up next month (mid-November), a second trailer has debuted and it's as charming as you're hoping. Whether or not you're a big Calvin & Hobbes fan, this is a must watch doc. Here's the second trailer for Joel Allen Schroeder's doc Dear Mr. Watterson, found on YouTube: Filmmaker Joel Allen Schroeder first went to Kickstarter to fund his first feature film called Dear Mr. Watterson, a documentary which features famous illustrators,...

Well here's something we're pretty sure Calvin won't be peeing on.

Bill Watterson basically yelled "peace out!," dropped his pen like rappers drop microphones and ducked out of the public eye after changing the world of comic strips with "Calvin and Hobbes." He's been legendarily protective of the property, too, which is why we haven't seen some animation studio's adaptation with Justin Bieber voicing Calvin (or whatever, which would have probably been even worse than that). We're positive that those truck stop stickers featuring Calvin peeing on basically everything aren't authorized.

Watterson was included in Time Magazine's Top 10 Most Reclusive Celebrities list, so you know that dude ain't coming out of hiding.

Director Joel Allen Schroeder and his pals raised close to $100,000 on Kickstarter about four years ago for a documentary (which he began work on way back in 2007) that's less about Watterson and more about the impact of the...

This has admittedly been online for a while, but has just been brought to our attention by a small piece in the New York Times. And if you, like us, had so far managed to miss news of Joel Allen Schroeder's Dear Mr. Watterson - an affectionate missive to Calvin and Hobbes and their creator - you'll thank us for sharing the love and bringing you this trailer.If you're new here - and you've been seriously missing out if you are - Calvin and Hobbes was a syndicated newspaper comic strip, involving a boy and his tiger (real to Calvin, stuffed to everyone else), that ran from 1985 to 1995. In far too small a nutshell for the job, it basically deals with the awkward co-existence of real life and Calvin's fantasy inner world. It's beautifully drawn, meticulously observed, quietly philosphical and never not funny.A man of principle, Watterson...

I grew up on Calvin & Hobbes. I read that comic strip every chance I got, and I have all of the book collections. Just like several of my favorite movies from the '80s, this comic had a pretty big impact on my life. These are two of the most iconic characters ever created, and I loved them!

First time filmmaker Joel Allen Schroeder directed a documentary that he kickstarted called Dear Mr. Watterson. It chronicles the impact that the comic strip created by author and illustrator Bill Watterson had on the world. It features interviews with several famous illustrators, actors, and other fans, and the role these characters played in their lives. I'm happy to report that the doc will be distributed in the U.S. by Gravitas Ventures.

The comic ran in syndication from 1985 to 1995 when Watterson ended its run on New Year’s Eve. Watterson has been extremely protective of his work,...

Director Joel Allen Schroeder started working on a Calvin and Hobbes documentary in 2007 and raised almost $100,000 on Kickstarter in 2009. The result, Dear Mr. Watterson, is finally scheduled for a November 15 release. The trailer reveals a movie that doesn't chase after the comic strip's famously elusive creator, but rather interviews a wide spectrum of its fans: from Robot Chicken's Seth Green to FoxTrot's Bill Amend.

To get an idea of how long Dear Mr. Watterson has been in the works, consider that its creator Joel Schroeder posted a teaser trailer for it three years ago. And that was years after he’d started working on it. Fortunately, it was the exact kind of thing that Kickstarter was built for, and after 2,083 backers representing over $120,000 chipped in, the film is finished. Now, according to Variety, the “Calvin & Hobbes” documentary will see theaters and VOD on November 15th. As you can imagine, it chronicles Bill Watterson’s monumental creation and its influence — specifically by featuring conversations with the likes of Berkeley Breathed (“Bloom County”), Bill Amend (“Foxtrot”), Seth Green and more. Check out the teaser trailer after the jump: Awesome, awesome, awesome news. Times a million. I don’t even know what else to say. Short of getting a “Calvin & Hobbes” movie from Watterson himself, which is obviously never going to happen, a...

For decades, fans have continued to love Bill Watterson's witty comic strip Calvin & Hobbes despite the fact that it ended back in 1995 on New Year's Eve. The strip which follows a precocious little boy named Calvin and his stuffed tiger (brought to life by his imagination) ran daily for ten years, and has been compiled into several anthologies. Thankfully, Watterson has protected his creations from licensing deals and has no plans to let them get turned into films or TV shows as he enjoys a private retirement. But that doesn't keep Calvin & Hobbes from being the focus of a documentary chronicling the legacy of the comic. Here's a trailer for the documentary Dear Mr. Watterson from the film's YouTube channel: Filmmaker Joel Allen Schroeder took to Kickstarter to fund his first feature film called Dear Mr. Watterson, a documentary which features famous illustrators, actors and other fans of Calvin...

In time for Comic-Con, Gravitas Ventures has snapped up North American rights to documentary "Dear Mr. Watterson," which explores the impact of Bill Watterson's "Calvin & Hobbes" comic strip. It is directed by first-time filmmaker Joel Allen Schroeder. Here's more info on the film, which had its premiere at the Cleveland International Film Festival:“Calvin & Hobbes” dominated the comics sections of thousands of newspapers for over 10 years, having a profound effect on millions of readers across the globe. When the strip’s creator, Bill Watterson, retired the strip on New Year’s Eve in 1995, devoted readers everywhere felt the void left by the departure of Calvin, Hobbes, and Watterson’s other cast of characters, and many fans would never find a satisfactory replacement. It has now been more than a decade since the end of the Calvin & Hobbes era. Bill Watterson has lived a very private, if not reclusive life outside of Cleveland,...

Gravitas Ventures has acquired all North American rights to Joel Allen Schroeder’s documentary Dear Mr. Watterson.

The film explores the phenomenon of Bill Watterson’s popular 1980s and 1990s comic strip Calvin & Hobbes.

Gravitas Ventures will partner with Submarine Deluxe on a theatrical and VoD release commencing on Nov 15.

Calvin & Hobbes dominated the comics sections of thousands of newspapers for more than 10 years before Watterson retired the strip on New Year’s Eve 1995.

The film recently received its North American premiere at the Cleveland International Film Festival.

Schroeder wrote and produced Dear Mr. Watterson and it took him six years to make, backed by a Kickstarter campaign that generated more than $120,000.

Christopher Browne and Matt McUsic also produced.

Gravitas Ventures vp of business affairs Brendan Gallagher brokered the deal with Chris Perez of Donaldson & Callif on behalf of the filmmaker.

Gravitas Ventures has acquired all North American rights to Joel Allen Schroeder’s documentary Dear Mr. Watterson.

The film explores the phenomenon of Bill Watterson’s popular 1980s and 1990s comic strip Calvin & Hobbes.

Gravitas Ventures will partner with Submarine Deluxe on a theatrical and VoD release commencing on Nov 15.

Calvin & Hobbes dominated the comics sections of thousands of newspapers for more than 10 years before Watterson retired the strip on New Year’s Eve 1995.

The film recently received its North American premiere at the Cleveland International Film Festival.

Schroeder wrote and produced Dear Mr. Watterson and it took him six years to make, backed by a Kickstarter campaign that generated more than $120,000.

Christopher Browne and Matt McUsic also produced.

Gravitas Ventures vp of business affairs Brendan Gallagher brokered the deal with Chris Perez of Donaldson & Callif on behalf of the filmmaker.

With eight days left to go in its Kickstarter campaign, Joel Schroeder.s Calvin & Hobbes documentary Dear Mr. Watterson has surpassed its goal of raising $50,000 (it had $65,936 donated from 1,027 backers at the time of writing this story), and now will make its way into the light, so to speak. First, some back story. Schroeder started this process back in 2007, researching Watterson.s seminal comic strip about a boy and his tiger to analyze why it had such an impact on our culture. In 2010, the filmmaker started a Kickstarter capaign that raised nearly $25,000, allowing the documentarian to collect interviews with Watterson.s editor, Lee Salem; cartoonist Berkeley Breathed; actor Seth Green; Looking for Calvin & Hobbes author Nevin Martell; and many more. Schroeder says the final cut of his film runs 90 minutes. And now he.d like to finish the process of distributing the film by raising enough money to pay for...