I’m so sad that Watson has died. It never occurred to me that it would be hard to draw the strip, or that I wouldn’t want to, once he died, but it feels that way now. I never realized how having him in the world made “drawing him” easier or seem more true, but it did. Now, when I think about drawing the character of Watson for the comic it feels strange. In fact, I haven’t even tried. I’ve been drawing comics my whole life and am glad I finally hit upon a comic strip format where I felt like I could be myself and draw how I want to draw. I literally have no idea what’s going to happen. I suspect I’m still very shaken and very sad. Watson was my little boy, which is what I always called him. I’m so sad my little boy is gone. No one will ever take his place.
There’s been a lot of this going around on Facebook lately, so I thought it might be fun to put one of these together. This is actually a picture of Watson from 2006, but it’s an older image that I had on-hand. I fudged a little bit.
I’ve been TOTALLY WRONG about how long I’ve been publishing “WATSON.”
As it turns out, I’ve been drawing Watson for 13 years, not 9.
I just found a whole bunch of old stuff – old website stuff and syndicate samples – that totally jogged my memory. I just remembered that I came up with the idea for the strip (exactly) on June 26, 2006 after a visit to see Hilary Price, started drawing it shortly thereafter, and then submitted different versions of the strip to the syndicates in 2006 and 2008.
I first started publishing/posting strips on the original Watson website in 2007, but thought it was a bit later, too.
Since starting the Watson website in 2007 it’s crashed and been re-built a few times, but it’s much nicer now then it ever was in the past.
I’m the WORST cartooning parent ever.
Sorry Watson and Fudgey.
You’re now much older and wiser than me.
