Early Years and Education
Watterson was born in Washington, D.C., where his father, James G. Watterson (born 1932), worked as a patent examiner while going to George Washington University Law School before becoming a patent attorney in 1960.
In 1964, when Watterson was six years old, the family moved to Chagrin Falls, Ohio, where his mother, Kathryn Watterson, became a city council member. James Watterson was elected as a council member in 1997, holding that position for 12 years before retiring on August 31, 2009 to pursue artistic "projects and goals".
Watterson, who drew his first cartoon at age eight, spent much time in childhood alone, drawing and cartooning. This continued through his school years, and he drew cartoons for his high school newspaper and yearbook. During this time he discovered comic strips like Pogo, Krazy Kat, and Charles Schulz' Peanuts which subsequently inspired and influenced his desire to become a professional cartoonist. His parents recall him as a very quiet and unassuming child, who would spend hours drawing in his room:
"He was a conservative child, not that he was unimaginative, because of course he was. But not in a fantasy way. He and his brother (Tom) would make time-lapse movies and that certainly showed a certain amount of imagination. And he would draw his characters. But he was nothing like Calvin. He didn't have an imaginary friend like Hobbes, and he wasn't a Dennis the Menace."
— James G. Watterson
Read more about this topic: Bill Watterson
Famous quotes containing the words early years, early, years and/or education:
“Parents ... are sometimes a bit of a disappointment to their children. They don’t fulfil the promise of their early years.”
—Anthony Powell (b. 1905)
“The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the alms-house as brightly as from the rich man’s abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I stir my martinis with the screw,
four-inch and stainless steel,
and think of my hip where it lay
for four years like a darkness.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“‘Tis well enough for a servant to be bred at an University. But the education is a little too pedantic for a gentleman.”
—William Congreve (1670–1729)