CraveOnline: Is that respect artistically or more from his principles?
Joel Allen Schroeder: I mean, I think it starts with the art but then I think his principles solidify it. Ultimately I think it’s the respect for the medium. In this day and age, we seem to feel like if something is not adapted into a movie, it hasn’t reached its apex, right?
I feel like so many people think that once you are adapted into a movie, only then are you legitimized.
Right.
What else did you read? Is there a Dear Mr. Larson that could follow this?
I read Calvin & Hobbes, I loved The Far Side. My brother was more The Far Side. I felt that was more…
It was one or the other.
His was The Far Side, mine was Calvin & Hobbes. I can remember Overboard, I read. I think that’s still being done. Foxtrot. But it was not long after Calvin & Hobbes ended that I stopped reading comics for years.
Now newspapers are dying. You talk about in the movie how comics are moving online, but it is fundamentally different.
Oh yeah.
They don’t arrive on your doorstep every day. You have to seek them out.
In the documentary Stripped, if you know about that film, they’re going to go into that in a lot more depth. It’s more about that change from papers to web.
Were you aware of the extent of Berkely Breathed correspondence with Bill Watterson when you started interviewing him?
No, I don’t think. When we spoke to him, I think that it was the middle of the interview that he sort of stopped and pulled out a folder of all the letters. We talked to him in 2009.
Wow, you’ve been at this.
Yeah, it’s been 6 1/2 years.
That is dedication.
It’s been a long, slow burn for a while. The Kickstarter campaign has really Kickstarted the project.
Yeah, I would imagine so. Six years… how do you not get bored?
Well, it’s the type of thing… Early on, the first few years, it was in the free time I had from shooting or editing other projects, in the downtime I set up the next interview, or the next trip to set up the next couple interviews.
How much of the film came from that slow burn period?
That’s a good question. [Thinks] Our interview with Berk Breathed was early on, prior to our first Kickstarter campaign. A good chunk of the fan interviews was early on. Our trip to Chagrin Falls was early on. It’s hard to break it down.
What do you think of the work Adam Brown has been doing?
Oh, the animator! Personally, I don’t feel I need to see them animated, but I do think it’s great to see people take their creative talents and energies… and the fact that you can’t go and buy a Hobbes doll means that if you want a Hobbes doll, you have to make it. Or hire someone to make it for you. [Laughs] The same thing, there isn’t a Calvin & Hobbes animated film out there, so you can go make your own. I do think that it helps people get their fix in a way. People have obviously responded. I’d have to look at YouTube hits to see which of his was the bigger deal.
I remember posting at CraveOnline, that video with the snowmen.
I think that may be my favorite Calvin & Hobbes homage or tribute. I think that was fantastic.
So you’re going to produce another documentary after this, you think?
Yeah. It’s likely going to be very different.
What sort of documentary would you be interested in that would be very different?
Some of the docs that are my favorite are just, you watch it and how did they find this story? These amazing characters that they discovered? Wonderful, wonderful stories. Gosh, if I had made King of Kong, I would feel like my life was complete. In Dear Mr. Watterson we didn’t have Watterson himself to follow and be in the film in that way. The ideas I have are mixed, to following a local politician along their four-year term, to dealing with something about national parks and the wilderness.
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
