I really, really miss Calvin and Hobbes in the funny pages. I think that it was possibly the funniest comic strip ever made. Most people I know could relate, in some way, to that little guy and his imagined adventures. The content was great and the art was just fantastic. Some of my favorite. The expressions that were drawn were just classic.
Now. No more Calvin and Hobbes in the newspaper. Yes, they have some books with collected works in them (have you seen the GIANT collection?! Awesome.) and they are good. However, I keep seeing Calvin pop all OVER the place. And he is peeing on things. Chevy symbols, Ford logos, numbers 24 to 3, crosses, fishes, Osama Bin Laden....I mean, the list is pretty much endless. Which is why I hope that Bill Watterson, the creator and illustrator of Calvin and Hobbes, signed an aMAZing deal for the use of that character. I hope that for every drop of pee that cascades onto a digit, logo, or symbol Mr. Watterson gets a big, fat check. And when did this all start? How many years ago did we start seeing Calvin urinating on the back of cars and trucks (mostly trucks, let's be honest)? Because, if Watterson just got all his money up front...he didn't get enough. Calvin is apparently not going to stop peeing anytime soon, so Watterson should see something of that pee.
Question / Answer
13 years ago
3 comments:
I agree, the giant collection is amazing. We got it for my brother-in-law for Christmas last month.
And I have a t-shirt with Calvin peeing on something (actually it's Paul's, but he left it at my place so I kept it). Anyway, if Mr. Watterson did not get any money for that, then all he needs to do is give me his address and I will gladly send him a couple dollars. :)
Speaking to this... another huge reason to love Watterson is that he actually didn't sell out the merchandising rights. Typically, the syndicate that publishes the cartoon acquires merchandising rights from the artist. But, Watterson insisted on keeping his, feeling that commercializing his art that way was very negative and took away from the integrity.
That's why almost all of the things you see with "Calvin" on them don't look quite true to Watterson's renderings, they are bootlegged, so to speak... so that money from the peeing-Calvins doesn't actually go to Watterson because they are unauthorized. Buying the official anthologies and books is much better than buying any other type of merchandise because it shows support for Watterson's 'fight' so to speak.
In fact, here are a couple websites which say this in a bit more detail:
http://www.answers.com/topic/bill-watterson
http://candh.wikia.com/wiki/Merchandise
Just some random trivia :)
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