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I forget who told me that Bill Watterson was coming out of retirement to write an actual book. I was giddy enough to pre-order. I finished it in about two minutes and then really read it in about five-to-ten.

The physical book itself, a hardcover, is very nicely done. Sturdy: excellent binding and high-quality glossy paper. I pick it up once in a while to meditate over the story and art.

Speaking of the art. It’s this two and many times three-dimensional clay, cardboard, Elmers glue, and paint chiarascuro that they spent a lot more time working on compared to the story. Just two artists exploring a new direction both for their individual selves and as a team, and saying no to each other but not to the motive force of the project itself.

Our collaboration wasn’t as much about compromise as it was about collision. Over and over, we hurled ourselves at each other. My detailed realism smashing into Bill’s stripped down primitivism. This dumb method created tons of debris and also flashes of lightning that could not have happened any other way […] Working through differences toward a common purpose is practically an act of defiance these days and I’m as proud of that as of any other aspect of the collaboration.

And I think that’s really what this work is. An experiment in collaboration by two very talented artists and visual storytellers. I think I’d get the same enjoyment from the book if I paid more attention to getting lost in the art and skipping every other page of text. I can see why someone would be upset by its length, however.

As for what it means, I think it’s about Nature, perhaps our blue-green home, about how much she sustains and forgives us. And we just keep taking 🤷‍♂️. But it’ll all be fine. The last few pages reminded me of this prophet:

The planet is fine; the people are fucked! […] The planet isn’t going anywhere; we are! We’re going away! Pack your shit, folks! We’re going away and we won’t leave much of a trace either, thank God for that. Maybe a little Styrofoam, maybe. Little Styrofoam. The planet will be here, we’ll be long gone; just another failed mutation; just another closed-end biological mistake; an evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet will shake us off like a bad case of fleas, a surface nuisance.