By all accounts, Joel Allen Schroeder has few vices. Besides his love of filmmaking- a pursuit which has landed the Minnesota resident in Hollywood after a stint at the University of Southern California- and Priuses, the Milwaukee-born director and producer is atypically average for H-Wood. He doesn’t drive fancy cars. Nor does he carry a Rolodex of names in a Blackberry somewhere. To outside eyes, he is the very definition of milquetoast. Yet behind the façade lies a secret life few have glimpsed, until now.
For Joel is not like anyone else. Joel loves comic strips, especially, one revolving around a certain boy and his stuffed tiger.
He’s not the only one either- since the Bill Watterson retired the Calvin and Hobbes strips in 1995 and assumed a life of relative seclusion in Ohio, millions of fans have waxed nostalgic about halcyon days lounging around in their homes on Sunday mornings, reading the strips as they sipped their favorite beverage or sat in bed contemplating the different philosophies of the two main characters.
During the 14 plus years Watterson has been out of the public eye, a flurry of fan fiction, reproduced strips and merchandise have sprouted up, nearly all of it unauthorized. From pissing Calvin decals to T-shirts of the rambunctious six year-old, a plethora of kitsch products have popped up celebrating Calvin and Hobbes’ exploits.
Yet Schroeder has taken his love of all things Calvin one step further- into film. While it is not an authorized documentary, Dear Mr. Watterson aims to put the Sunday strips into perspective, examining the social impact the comics have had over the ensuing years. It is also a labor of love.
“Calvin and Hobbes had not only given me un-measurable enjoyment and pleasure,” Schroeder said in an email interview, “but it had also had an impact in the way I see the world.”
The idea for a film came from one of the most clichéd of places for someone in the arts: the shower.
“You never know what you’re going to think of in the shower,” he said. “And that’s how the project came to me. I was thinking about people I really appreciate, or might think of as my heroes, and Bill Watterson came to mind. It was instantly a project I felt more passion for than anything I ever worked on.”
Yet in many ways, the roots of the film- the nostalgia, the what-ifs, the longing for a bygone era- seeped in long before Schroeder’s step into the bathroom. Growing up in the semi-rural college towns of Madison and Appleton, surrounded by verdant countryside and suburban developments, the imaginative Wisconsinite developed a keen bond with the fictional Calvin, who in many ways resembled him (though it is unknown whether Schroeder had a stuffed tiger who attacked him as he walked home after school). From an early age, the themes of adventure and exploration, and the existential hopes and fears of Calvin and Hobbes, rang true with him.
They also rang true for another Wisconsinite. As a teenager visiting his father in Madison in the mid-1980s, the blogger known only as “Shag” only became aware of the strips as they gradually appeared in the local newspaper. But once they did, he took to it with childlike enthusiasm.
“I immediately related to it and found it hilarious,” He said in an email interview. “I spent hours sifting through [my father’s] old papers. I was hooked!”
He eventually returned to live with his mother, in a town where the newspaper did not run the strips. But his step-mother helped stem the withdrawal he was experiencing, sending him strips piecemeal, every three weeks. Until the local paper adopted the strip later on, it was be the only way he kept up with the comic for weeks.
Though separated by years and miles, both he and Schroeder have the same love of Watterson and the comic strip. A sentiment not unlike that of millions of fellow fans around the world- the trick is catching that on camera.
It is not an easy one for Schroeder, requiring mountains of video and numerous inquiries to fans both famous and not so famous. But he has help in the form of a three old friends from his film school days- Andrew Waruszewski, who is the director of photography for the documentary, and co-producers Matt Mcusic, and Christopher Browne.
Convincing them to pitch in has not been the hard part. The four go way back, for seven years in fact. Chemistry is hardly a problem for them. Getting the general public to volunteer is another issue.
“The film will need participation from Calvin and Hobbes fans,” Schroeder said. “So one of the first things we wanted to do [when we started] was to start a trailer and a web site to help collect stories from around the world.”
The result, dearmrwatterson.com, has become a success on the Internet, attracting eyeballs from the famous to the anonymous alike. Although it is not known what the exact numbers of page views are, the site has been twittered about, Facebooked, and discussed on a number of blogs.
The popularity of the site has been helped by its embrace of social networking. To date, Dear Mr. Watterson enjoys a presence on Facebook, Twitter as well as YouTube.
In addition, the site’s “participation” page makes explicit its desire to get the people involved. Besides informing their fans of a discussion group on Facebook, the page also encourages readers to get more involved in the film. A top-ten list, entitled “Things you can do for Dear Mr. Watterson” suggest fans promote the film on blogs, submit Calvin and Hobbes-themed video for the film, even write a personal letter of thanks to Watterson which the filmmakers hope to display in the documentary.
Already Schroeder has received a volume of emails dwelling on readers’ memories of the strip, from its earliest beginnings to the final panel on December 31, 1995, all uniformly positive.
“The reaction to the project has been amazing,“ he said. “I get e-mails all the time from people who want to share their stories about Calvin & Hobbes, and people seem very excited to see the film when it is completed- even though that is a bit down the road.”
Despite the groundswell of goodwill, there are still those who have their own opinions of how the film should turn out.
“I think the primary focus should be the ‘magic’ of Calvin and Hobbes,” Shag said. “Additionally, a study on Bill Watterson the creator would be interesting given how reclusive he is.”
In the meantime, the brain behind the Once upon a Geek weblog at will have to content himself with waiting. According to the Schroeder, the film won’t be released until 2011.
But that doesn’t mean Shag can’t relive his memories of the comic that once brought him joy.
“All of us have some remains of our childhood waiting to get back out,” he said. “Calvin is an excellent way to experience those feelings without acting them out ourselves.”
As for the movie’s director, he hopes the film will encourage fans to reconnect with their favorite characters- any which way they can.
“I hope that it [the film] inspires fans of the strip to dust off their Calvin and Hobbes books again, and the others will read the strip for the first time,” Schroder said. “I hope it makes people appreciate how wonderful Watterson’s work is, and I hope it helps to document his positive impact.”
–John Winn