But don't we all feel sure he could have rolled along for three or two or one more year? Surely it's not like his creativity ran out suddenly on Jan 1 1996 and he had no more comic strips in him. And it's not like the quality of the strips had started a slow decline, so... couldn't we have got one more year of cartoons?
I'm kidding really. Bill Watterson doesn't owe us anything; if he was no longer enjoying creating the comics, why should we get to enjoy reading them? And we'd just have the same complaint if he quit after eleven years instead of ten, or worse, we'd be saying how the last couple of years it was clear his heart wasn't in it.
> And it's not like the quality of the strips had started a slow decline
We have had threads on HN before about C&H where people identify a slight but noticeable change in the strip in the last years. Watterson was naturally growing more ornery as he moved towards dad age, and that more dismal view of the world did grind against the strip’s basis in the wonder and magic of childhood.
Watterson and Larson (both who retired at or near the "top" of their game) could easily have gone on for a year or two more - or three, or five, or twenty.
But they both knew that the font was running low, if not completely dry; likely triggered by starting a joke and realizing they'd done it before years ago.
Both have "come back" here and there to dabble, as appropriate for someone who actually knows how to retire.
Schultz, who is still fairly universally beloved (including by Watterson I think?) went on forever. So did Johnny Hart (BC). The trick is that they're not really trying to get a laugh out of you every day. They're a slightly surreal setting with warmth, and a few recurring gags.
Larson and Watterson were high intensity in a way classic cartoonists weren't. That's not bad, but most people are probably going to burn out or worse (e.g. ending up like Scott Adams).
I take Schultz as the epitome of the “danger” of going forever - the early Peanuts is substantially different than the later ones.
But he’s also a good example of “growing with his audience” - the latter strips pleased his readers even if they didn’t gain many additional.
I do find that it’s sad that in an era of increasingly cheaper and cheaper printing that comics continue to shrink.
I respect it honestly.
The Simpsons used to be my favorite show, but I feel like the quality dropped dramatically after season ~13 or so. Part of that is because I got older, I'll admit, but even rewatching the older seasons, I still find them funny while season 13 and onward I simply don't.
I would have so rather they ended the show twenty years ago and use whatever budget they spent making it on new cartoons.
Another example of retiring at the top was Howard Tayler's Schlock Mercenary. A 20 year run of daily comics with about 16-17 years of that being a reasonably consistent storyline.
Berke Breathed should have taken their example more seriously.
Doing a daily anything is hard. Garry Trudeau sort of did a good compromise by pivoting to just a Sunday entry--that is still pretty solid. But my general observation is that it's really hard to keep things flowing day-in and day-out as a cartoonist/columnist/etc.
I didn't read the comics when they were new, but I started reading the daily rerun comics of Doonesbury, and I hadn't realized how funny they actually are.
I guess as a kid I always thought it was the comic that "old people" liked, and never gave it much of a shot, but I kind of inadvertently found it recently and it actually pretty good.
The old ones vs the current ones really do hit different.
One of my favourite comic artists, Mads Eriksen [1][2] basically "disappeared" in 2008-2009 and didn't start regularly publishing comics again for more than a decade (at a much slower pace) because of the pressure and burnout.
Maybe Watterson could have squeezed another year or two out of himself, but it's by no means a given it wouldn't have meant unreasonable personal sacrifice.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mads_Eriksen_(cartoonist)
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M_(comic_strip)
I have similar feelings about TV shows. There are shows that I wish hadn’t ended after a couple of seasons, but there are also a ton of shows that dragged on for 6, 8, 15 seasons when it clearly would have been better to end them years earlier.
Overall I lean toward appreciating things that end early more than things that end late.