The most magnificent thing about Calvin and Hobbes is ..... Calvin and Hobbes.
The second most magnificent thing is Calvin and Hobbes was never licensed.
The third most magnificent thing is it stopped whilst it was awesome instead of being wrung out for every penny.
There's no films, no sequels. You can't buy a licensed tshirt with Calvin and Hobbes on it. There's no licensed merchandise. No one has made it into a live action movie. Calvin and Hobbes are not available this month on MacDonalds cups if you buy a second whopper burger. You can't buy plush toys of Hobbes. There isn't a Christmas special TV show. Giant balloon figures of Calvin and Hobbes do not appear in city parades.
Imagine if Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit had been kept so pristine.
All that said, IMHO, having Peanuts characters on MetLife ads, or visiting Camp Snoopy doesn’t cheapen or weaken the original strips.
“Merry Christmas Charlie Brown” and “Great Pumpkin” are both pure, done by Schulz rather than handed off. It’s Schulz bringing his work to life how he wanted it done.
Did he have Guaraldi music in his head when he created the characters? Dunno. Do you think it really changed them for him? Dunno either, but seems unlikely.
I have the 4 volume C & H boxed set. I was there, mostly, reading it daily from the beginning to the end. I’m pretty sure I have the final strip saved from when it was published in a box somewhere. Mad respect for Watterson, his work, his vision.
That said, I’d be first in line for a Hobbes doll. I had a pirate Spaceman Spiff sticker on the back of my motorcycle helmet.
I don’t think an Opus the Penguin doll had any real impact on Breatheds work, but at the same time he stopped the licensing, so who knows.
The work stands on its own. I’ve never read LoTR. I don’t know if it’s impacted how people view the books. I do know that I’ve watched the trilogy at least once a year since its release.
Calvin is Calvin. Opus is Opus. Snoopy is Snoopy. And Waterson will do as he likes with his work. I just think his work is stronger than he, perhaps, thinks it is.
I'm not a huge objector to the continued outchurn of the Star Wars or Star Trek or MCU franchises, for example, because there's an academic sense in which the existence of bad stuff doesn't negate the existence of good stuff.
BUT...
I think restraint and scarcity can make things more special. Food is more enjoyable when we are hungry, absence makes the heart grow fonder, etc..
Narratively, it's good to leave some questions unanswered. A successful franchise leaves the fans wanting more, but actually giving them more can leave us over-satiated and uninterested.
There's no more magic or mystery left when every character has had their own mini-series to fully flesh-out every aspect of their arc.
My favorite Peanuts ripoff is a ditty from Jeff Gilbert's "Brain Pain" circa 1989 or so:
kids: Trick or treat!
kid 1: I got a popcorn ball!
kid 2: I got a fudge ball!
kid 3: I got a pack of gum!
Charlie Brown: I gotta rock!
<heavy metal ensues>
Gawd I miss Jeff Gilbert's show. He should have been syndicated nationally, rather than just a local thing.
>Imagine if Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit had been kept so pristine.
I find it unlikely I would have heard about them, my local library was full of books from the 50's I had never heard of and was reluctant to read. Seeing the Hobbit cartoon gave me an interest in it that I followed up on in middle school.
On that note, the only way most children will hear of Calvin and Hobbes is if their parents were big fans or through the many unlicensed products available. Maybe that's fine, but people seem strangely proud that's the case.
Everyone knew about LOTR and read the books before the movies came out. It was in no way some obscure out of print lit, it was both pop and a cult classic, and it was very much front and center of any must read fantasy bookshelf. Hence the wildly profitable movies.
The animated Hobbit cartoon movie is a freaking treasure. It got me into fantasy as a kid and led me to reading the Tolkien books. I have passed it on to my daughter and the opening scene where Thorin & Gandalf talk about the Dragon while reading direct quotes from the book still gives me chills and was probably my first real experience with poetry.
>I find it unlikely I would have heard about them, my local library was full of books from the 50's I had never heard of and was reluctant to read
Millions read LOTR and Hobbit before the movies, and they had very active communities all the way to the 90s. Like millions have read HGTTG before the movie (who didn't even do that well) and millions continue to do so -- including millions worldwide who never heard the radio show ever.
> my local library was full of books from the 50's I had never heard of and was reluctant to read.
Ok but whose loss is that? Tolkien did not write for people who were afraid of old books. If he had wanted to reach the largest audience possible whatever the means, he would have written differently. It happenede that a rather large audience did appreaciate his works in their original form, apparently also to the surprise of Tolkien himself.
Watterson himself was inspired by comic strips from the early 20th century. There were no cartoons or film adaptations of those around, but nevertheless they remained around for him to discover through books.
I can't stress enough how unheard of it is for a comic strip artist to just walk out on his creation. Usually there are only two possible ends: either the strip gets cancelled when its popularity drops, or the author works on it until they drop dead (happened to Charles Schulz with Peanuts and will probably happen to Jim Davis with Garfield). Some strips are even continued by other artists (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blondie_(comic_strip)).
Reminds me of R.E.M. (one of my favorite bands) who also decided in 2011 to call it a day and split amicably, thus escaping the fate of all other rock bands who either implode because their members can't stand each other anymore or go on until they, well, drop dead.
I know IP laws like copyright and trademarks are vilified because of how companies like Disney and Nintendo weaponized them but I appreciate how the spirit of the law is still kept intact when protecting things like Calvin and Hobbes.
Allowing an artist to control their own art for justice/purity/authenticity reasons is not the spirit of the law. The stated purpose of IP law is to incentivize useful things. Calvin & Hobbes is an example of the law being used contrary to its intended purpose.
> “To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.”
Personally I find the films far more approachable than the books. There's too much goddamned singing in LOTR and the prose doesn't feel nearly as dark and serious as the films
As a Germanicist who was also enchanted by Finnish, Tolkien’s inspirations lay in things like the Icelandic sagas and the Kalevala, which are replete with singing or composition of poems. (The Kalevala was sung, and in works like Egil’s Saga the prose narrative is frequently interrupted to present an intricate poem.) After all, there was a close link between song, poetry, and magic in ancient northern Europe.
Huh. That’s exactly the opposite of the impression I got. The books seemed properly solemn when it counted, more so than the movies, and I found that the poems really added to the atmosphere. (I’m particularly fond of the ones sung by Gimli and Galadriel; as sad and wistful as they were, they managed to convey a lot of mood and emotion in just a few carefully-chosen words.)
>Imagine if Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit had been kept so pristine.
It kind of was until fairly recently with the Jackson films. Growing up in the 1970s and 1980s we basically just had the books. Yes, there were animated versions of The Hobbit and LOTR in the late 1970s, but they were fairly obscure and before VCRs became common in the 1980s, it was difficult to even see them.
I just wanted to add that Calvin & Hobbes was a huge part of my childhood and something that I've yearned to get more of, but there's none more to be had.
I recently discovered "Phoebe and her Unicorn" is pretty amazing as well and although a different comic, has a lot in common and there are many strips to read.
All depends what Watterson does with his estate when that time comes. Watterson has shown to have a greater resolve for his position on this than most others and it wouldn't surprise me that he has this figured out to prevent anything until the copyright runs its course.
You had me until that last sentence ;) Additionally, one of my most cherished t-shirts is an homage to C&H that is instead Rey and Chewie in the same style.
I understand aversion to over commercialization. But I don't think world would have been a better place without Jackson's movies and Batman/Spiderman animated.
In the end, it is creator's choice and no choice is better/worse.
>There's no films, no sequels. You can't buy a licensed tshirt with Calvin and Hobbes on it. There's no licensed merchandise. No one has made it into a live action movie. Calvin and Hobbes are not available this month on MacDonalds cups if you buy a second whopper burger. You can't buy plush toys of Hobbes. There isn't a Christmas special TV show. Giant balloon figures of Calvin and Hobbes do not appear in city parades.
Hopefully, by the time there are new copyright owners (after Watterson) and want to do all of the above, it wont be a possibility anymore, because the Gen Alphas wouldn't know or care what Calvin and Hobbes was, and wont be able to follow such "heavy literature" anyway.
>Imagine if Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit had been kept so pristine.
My daughter is six (so gen alpha) and she latched on to my old calvin and hobbes books and has read them all repeatedly. Not saying you're wrong but the appeal seems to go across generations.
What I really notice is that Calvin roams freely outside, and is her age. I don't really feel comfortable letting my own kid do that :-\.
I bought a big pile of C&H books and my kids are devouring them with as much appreciation as I did when I was their age. I see no reason why my grandkids won't do the same
It's bittersweet to me that there isn't more Calvin and Hobbes. I understand the "quit while you're ahead" mindset, but I read some fan-made webcomic where Calvin and Susie were now adult parents, and it felt great to read some C&H again in some shape or form.
The whole thing feels very pre-internet, I have a feeling that the arc of Calvin and Hobbes would look different today if Watterson hadn’t had to bitterly fight the syndicate for so long and had a Patreon instead
I think my childhood would’ve been enhanced by having one, but I agree on your other points. Perhaps the answer is that licensing in moderation can be done thoughtfully? It doesn’t have to be a Garfield-esque free for all.
Why do people care so much about...I don't know if there's a word for this...I wanna say serial integrity as in integrity of the series? If I like a general premise and cast I have zero issue with them doing dogshit if they're having fun and it simply produces more content on a quantitative basis that can add to the binge rewatching duration value? Maybe I'm just weird like that.
I tried to vibe with this POV. What's wrong with more content? But it really does cheapen the art/media you used to adore. Even if you try to ignore it, i.e. you don't have to watch / read all the Star Trek content that has been produced in the last 20 years, and after picard season 1 I completely checked out of all of it, but it just kind of makes everything you loved seem so empty. It was all about generating positive cash flows...the whole time.
I hate this opinion, but even accepting it at face value, it doesn't apply to comic strips. A TV show is a mishmash of dozens of visions from the start, so it's easy to let the Ship of Theseus continue on with new writers or sequels or spinoffs. An author-drawn comic is the work of one person. It doesn't have a cast, it's just them. Letting corporate greed machines get it removes the whole appeal by default.
I mean, it is fiction, so of course you can just pick and choose what you engage with. But, it is pretty common to leave hints of backstory and future stuff. It is nice because you can fill in the blanks. “Happily ever after” can be as nice as you imagine.
Or the author goes off the deep end and starts getting better known for political rants. Subsequently it may be hard to enjoy their older works as you are looking for signs of what will develop…
It will be past 2060. Chances are, by then, the mainstream won't care. Do you still care about Little Nemo, Yellow Kid, the Spirit...? The few names from Golden age strips that you actually care about (Flash Gordon, Tarzan...) had already been exploited well before the time IP expiration entered the picture.
There was a Swedish comic like this, "Bamse". Probably the most popular comic for children in the 70s-80s. It's creator had socialist leanings and had no interest in licensing the IP. He passed a way quite a while back, and suffice to say, his children did not see it the same way. Now there are plenty of opportunities to buy Bamse merchandise, meet him in special parks or buy his meal at the burger chain.
> The third most magnificent thing is it stopped whilst it was awesome
The last couple of years of C&H featured increasing criticism of modern society (e.g. modern art, advertising) that seemed rather grumpy and “old man yells at cloud”. Sure, Watterson stopped before the strip could have gone in an overtly sociopolitical direction like some of its peers, but the strip was no longer quite as timeless and innocent as it had been.
I was a kid when the series finished, and got my first comic “The Indispensable Calvin & Hobbes” when I was 6. Granted I was young, but the “political” stuff was what made it funny. Young me found the storylines totally puzzling, yet hilarious. Even after I got older and started understanding the “political” comics more, it didn’t really bother me. Calvin and Hobbes explore philosophy more than politics, in my view.
The main characters are named after 17th century philosophers John Calvin and Thomas Hobbes, after all
Rocky and Bullwinkle, ostensibly a kiddie cartoon, had quite a bit of sly political humor tossed in (and even sex humor). It would also break the 4th wall now and then.
Ironically now with AI art tech the fans themselves can now carry on the series as they like (including making animated flicks). Not saying this wouldn't violate C&H's IP protections nor that the resulting product will have the same essence but a creative+technically inclined fan tinkering in spare time now has the power to create an all new 'Calvin & Hobbes book' of their dreams. Even if they want to just do it for fun on their own.
Of course, if you were to put in enough effort to make a complete book (ie- 100+ page Sunday comic collections) that could stand among the rest in the original series probably best to adjust your art style, theme and content enough away from the original to make what you are doing essentially a spiritual successor - enabling you to comfortably share it with the outside world.
> Goblins steal a mother’s child and replace it with a ravenous changeling. When the woman asks a neighbor for advice on how to get her child back, she is told to make the changeling laugh, because “when a changeling laughs, that’s the end of him.”
The older I get, the more I tend to see literal meaning instead of metaphor. This is pretty good advice for a mother dealing with PPD/derealization/cabin fever.
The last CyB vignette it's the best symbolism to Nietzche's opus.
The old values died, here's a blank space to create something new. It's up to you to define those values.
When Calvin was thirty years old, he left his home and the lake of his home and went into the mountains. There he enjoyed his spirit and his solitude, and for ten years did not weary of it. Until one day, rising with the rosy dawn, he turned to his stuffed animal and spoke to it thus:
"Oh, thou great tiger! What would thy happiness be, had thee not those for whom though roars!"
If he cared, he would transfer the rights into a trust for the benefit of some charity with some strict constating documentation that prevents misuse. But this is only good until the rights naturally expire.
The second and third paragraphs mention 6 events Watterson has been involved in since 2013 which is 6 more appearances than Nakamoto in the same time period.
Readit News
The second most magnificent thing is Calvin and Hobbes was never licensed.
The third most magnificent thing is it stopped whilst it was awesome instead of being wrung out for every penny.
There's no films, no sequels. You can't buy a licensed tshirt with Calvin and Hobbes on it. There's no licensed merchandise. No one has made it into a live action movie. Calvin and Hobbes are not available this month on MacDonalds cups if you buy a second whopper burger. You can't buy plush toys of Hobbes. There isn't a Christmas special TV show. Giant balloon figures of Calvin and Hobbes do not appear in city parades.
Imagine if Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit had been kept so pristine.
“Merry Christmas Charlie Brown” and “Great Pumpkin” are both pure, done by Schulz rather than handed off. It’s Schulz bringing his work to life how he wanted it done.
Did he have Guaraldi music in his head when he created the characters? Dunno. Do you think it really changed them for him? Dunno either, but seems unlikely.
I have the 4 volume C & H boxed set. I was there, mostly, reading it daily from the beginning to the end. I’m pretty sure I have the final strip saved from when it was published in a box somewhere. Mad respect for Watterson, his work, his vision.
That said, I’d be first in line for a Hobbes doll. I had a pirate Spaceman Spiff sticker on the back of my motorcycle helmet.
I don’t think an Opus the Penguin doll had any real impact on Breatheds work, but at the same time he stopped the licensing, so who knows.
The work stands on its own. I’ve never read LoTR. I don’t know if it’s impacted how people view the books. I do know that I’ve watched the trilogy at least once a year since its release.
Calvin is Calvin. Opus is Opus. Snoopy is Snoopy. And Waterson will do as he likes with his work. I just think his work is stronger than he, perhaps, thinks it is.
I'm not a huge objector to the continued outchurn of the Star Wars or Star Trek or MCU franchises, for example, because there's an academic sense in which the existence of bad stuff doesn't negate the existence of good stuff.
BUT...
I think restraint and scarcity can make things more special. Food is more enjoyable when we are hungry, absence makes the heart grow fonder, etc..
Narratively, it's good to leave some questions unanswered. A successful franchise leaves the fans wanting more, but actually giving them more can leave us over-satiated and uninterested.
There's no more magic or mystery left when every character has had their own mini-series to fully flesh-out every aspect of their arc.
I'd say it very much does.
The focus on Snoopy itself is when the strip "jumped the shark" (here's a take, https://kotaku.com/how-snoopy-killed-peanuts-1724269473 ).
Of course Schulz dilluted it decades before the end of the strip, getting all too into repeatition and mass market concessions.
I find it unlikely I would have heard about them, my local library was full of books from the 50's I had never heard of and was reluctant to read. Seeing the Hobbit cartoon gave me an interest in it that I followed up on in middle school.
On that note, the only way most children will hear of Calvin and Hobbes is if their parents were big fans or through the many unlicensed products available. Maybe that's fine, but people seem strangely proud that's the case.
Millions read LOTR and Hobbit before the movies, and they had very active communities all the way to the 90s. Like millions have read HGTTG before the movie (who didn't even do that well) and millions continue to do so -- including millions worldwide who never heard the radio show ever.
Ok but whose loss is that? Tolkien did not write for people who were afraid of old books. If he had wanted to reach the largest audience possible whatever the means, he would have written differently. It happenede that a rather large audience did appreaciate his works in their original form, apparently also to the surprise of Tolkien himself.
Reminds me of R.E.M. (one of my favorite bands) who also decided in 2011 to call it a day and split amicably, thus escaping the fate of all other rock bands who either implode because their members can't stand each other anymore or go on until they, well, drop dead.
> “To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.”
No Leonard Nimoy song about Bilbo Baggins? C'mon...
Are we talking about the same movies with the walt disney happy ending?
It kind of was until fairly recently with the Jackson films. Growing up in the 1970s and 1980s we basically just had the books. Yes, there were animated versions of The Hobbit and LOTR in the late 1970s, but they were fairly obscure and before VCRs became common in the 1980s, it was difficult to even see them.
I dunno if it's that pristine, it ended up with decals of Calvin peeing on various logos for reasons that remain inscrutable to me to this day.
I did enjoy reading them as a kid and I had all the collections. It was very sad when the comic ended at nearly the same time as the Far Side comics.
I recently discovered "Phoebe and her Unicorn" is pretty amazing as well and although a different comic, has a lot in common and there are many strips to read.
https://www.gocomics.com/phoebe-and-her-unicorn/2012/04/25
[1] https://www.gocomics.com/frazz
Hate to say it, but give 50 years, I wouldn't be surprised if Calvin and Hobbes turns into what you described.
In the end, it is creator's choice and no choice is better/worse.
Until he dies, then all bets are off.
Hopefully, by the time there are new copyright owners (after Watterson) and want to do all of the above, it wont be a possibility anymore, because the Gen Alphas wouldn't know or care what Calvin and Hobbes was, and wont be able to follow such "heavy literature" anyway.
>Imagine if Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit had been kept so pristine.
If only...
What I really notice is that Calvin roams freely outside, and is her age. I don't really feel comfortable letting my own kid do that :-\.
You can count on the estate to go for easy money grab every time
I think my childhood would’ve been enhanced by having one, but I agree on your other points. Perhaps the answer is that licensing in moderation can be done thoughtfully? It doesn’t have to be a Garfield-esque free for all.
Deleted Comment
Or the author goes off the deep end and starts getting better known for political rants. Subsequently it may be hard to enjoy their older works as you are looking for signs of what will develop…
Dead Comment
The mainstream has a very short memory.
The last couple of years of C&H featured increasing criticism of modern society (e.g. modern art, advertising) that seemed rather grumpy and “old man yells at cloud”. Sure, Watterson stopped before the strip could have gone in an overtly sociopolitical direction like some of its peers, but the strip was no longer quite as timeless and innocent as it had been.
The main characters are named after 17th century philosophers John Calvin and Thomas Hobbes, after all
R+B is a forgotten treasure.
Dead Comment
Of course, if you were to put in enough effort to make a complete book (ie- 100+ page Sunday comic collections) that could stand among the rest in the original series probably best to adjust your art style, theme and content enough away from the original to make what you are doing essentially a spiritual successor - enabling you to comfortably share it with the outside world.
The older I get, the more I tend to see literal meaning instead of metaphor. This is pretty good advice for a mother dealing with PPD/derealization/cabin fever.
"Oh, thou great tiger! What would thy happiness be, had thee not those for whom though roars!"
-- Thus Spake Calvin