So, Bill Watterson

So, Bill Watterson

Was he right or was he just an asshole?

He always fought with the syndacate to get more creative freedom and not to allow merchandising of Calvin&Hobbes, and to a point he was right, it was his own creation and he didn't want to see it bastardized in soulless mass-produced merch; just look at the way Garfield went, it does make sense that he wanted C&H to continue, develop and end on his own terms, without compromising his ideals or those of his comic

On the other hand, he was kind of an asshole about it, preaching this high moral ground like all of the other cartoonists (including Charles M. Schulz, the author of Peanuts, with whom he was friends) were morons and sellouts, and denying his fanbase -most of which was composed of children- any kind of harmless and pre-approved toy; rumors have that he even went as far as burning a stuffed Hobbes that a fan stitched on her own and sent him as a gift

Other urls found in this thread:

outsidethebeltway.com/garfield-isnt-funny-and-was-never-supposed-to-be/
mentalfloss.com/article/53216/mental-floss-exclusive-our-interview-bill-watterson
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

>preaching this high moral ground like all of the other cartoonists (including Charles M. Schulz, the author of Peanuts, with whom he was friends) were morons and sellouts, and denying his fanbase -most of which was composed of children- any kind of harmless and pre-approved toy; rumors have that he even went as far as burning a stuffed Hobbes that a fan stitched on her own and sent him as a gift

Post a source for any of this

Seeing what his net worth is, I'd say he was right.

The man is still alive and your average kid on the street today probably knows about as much about Calvin and Hobbes as they do about Krazy Kat.

If they know anything at all, it's Calvin pissing on things in rear window stickers.

>preaching this high moral ground like all of the other cartoonists (including Charles M. Schulz, the author of Peanuts, with whom he was friends) were morons and sellouts

Well, saying that you don't want to be a sellout because of merch sort of implies that those who do have merch are sellouts
And Schulz wrote the introduction of one of the albums of C&H, "The indispensable Calvin&Hobbes" I think

>denying his fanbase -most of which was composed of children- any kind of harmless and pre-approved toy

Are there any C&H toys?

>rumors have that he even went as far as burning a stuffed Hobbes that a fan stitched on her own and sent him as a gift

Of this one I admit I'm not sure, that's why I wrote "rumors", but I remember reading it in one of the interviews with his syndacate or something like that, if anyone can confirm or debunk this it would be appreciated

What is your point? If creative success is measured by how many retards have heard of but don't understand your work than I guess he's not a success.

>The man is still alive and your average kid on the street today probably knows about as much about Calvin and Hobbes as they do about Krazy Kat

I know (and it's sad), but it doesn't mean that at the time he didn't have a fairly large fanbase - hence the pressure to produce merch from his syndacate


>If they know anything at all, it's Calvin pissing on things in rear window stickers

This is also sad, and I wonder if it's the very thing Watterson was trying to avoid, proving he was right, or a result of the lack of official merch. proving he was wrong

So it's all made up? Ok.

Im 21 turning 22 in a few months, and alot of kids in my grade school LOVED Calvin and Hobbes. It inspired me a great deal and made me want to do newspaper comics (until i realized that, especially now, no cartoonist anymore makes the big bucks like Schulz or Jim Davis did)

Im sure if they have the treasuries and other books in a library kids will be all over them. I think Calvin and Hobbes has lasted surprisingly well, and really the one time where the creator didnt just shove it in people's faces to make it well known.

I'd say creative success can only BE measured by legacy.

If it's measured by anything else should have sold out Jim Davis style and taken money.

He had this integrity thing going.
Look up the word.

???
It's only the last point I admit I'm not sure of, why you gotta be so fucking anal about it? I presented both points of view and I'm myself conflicted about the issue, that's why I'm asking

>it does make sense that he wanted C&H to continue, develop and end on his own terms, without compromising his ideals or those of his comic

Can you read?

Not that user, but if you're going to put words in someone's mouth and say very, VERY unflattering things about them you should *probably* have a source for your shit, otherwise you're just a gossiping fishmonger's wife.

Ah, so he never said those things.
Nice.

>Well, saying that you don't want to be a sellout because of merch sort of implies that those who do have merch are sellouts
>If you don't like a certain practice you have to be an extremist about
That's retarded user. When Watterson said he hated sellouts he meant people like Jim Davis, who he himself has said to not give a shit about Garfield and only made him as a way to sell merch and make money.

Watterson and Schulz were friends because even though Schulz had a shit ton of merch to his properties he still worked hard in not just the comics but the cartoons as well to be good quality and have heart.

Hating people who are only doing it for the money and hating people who care about their work and also making money are two different things.

Him not allowing merchandising of Calvin & Hobbes was more about him wanting to maintain creative control over the property. The man was a modest artist who just wanted to share a nice thing he made with the world, and as soon as you license it out for merchandising you lose some control. Seeing how Garfield was in the midst of merchandising gutting out any soul left in the comic and turning it into the hollow shell of entertainment we know it as today during the time when he was drawing Calvin and Hobbes, this was not an unreasonable thing for him to be afraid of.

In later years he has admitted that he was probably too strict with his stance on it, but I'd still say that the comic's well regarded legacy is largely due to the fact that it was undiluted by cultural forces. All we have is the comic, nothing more, nothing less, and the comic is great.

Yes, YOU love them and people from your age group love them, of course you do.

But unless you have the collections, and children, and share those collections WITH your children, then where do the children get to love C&H?

I didn't pick Krazy Kat randomly. Calvin and Hobbes might as well be a hundred year old comic for all the exposure it gets.

But it's a meme.

He made a comic.

His comic is available in any number of reasonably priced, conveniently available formats.

Fans are literally not entitled to anything.

>then where do the children get to love C&H?
In newspapers?
The library?
A bookstore?

to me it never felt like Bill was trying to convert his colleagues, at least from any research ive done and stuff ive read. He's praised Peanuts a great deal, and I dont think he's ever called out Schulz specifically for selling out, even saying despite the merchandise Peanuts has kept its heart and soul.

Im sure Bill was a hard man to "get" and maybe even to get along with for some people, but I jist think the guy was very conscious about how his art was perceived, and Im sure the public view of comics as this "childish medium" made him try to elevate his own work and try to prove that comics were art

Ok, ok, I get your point

I don't have any online source, as this is stuff that I read on the collections with comments I own, but I thought it was sort of common knowledge among fans that he wasn't exactly the nicest when discussing this kind of stuff with his editors

Yeah, I think that's how Bill was, I see him as a figure sort of similar to Salinger

And the point I was trying to make, I probably worded it poorly in the OP, is that while I get his point of view and I respect it and to an extent I agree with it, I wonder if he wasn't a little bit too "strict" about it

I mean, it's been 20 years since the strip ended, would a little stuffed Hobbes in the stores hurt so much? :(

Watterson is a wierdo with overtly high standards don't get me wrong, but the claim that he hates anyone that makes money and hates his fan and is living in the woods somewhere of the grid are just exaggerated tall tales of his character.

It's like how Edgar Allen Poe is commonly known to be a brooding alcoholic suffering from deep depression when in reality he was just an alcoholic that really like to scary stories and mysteries.

Im sure Im said kids will find them if theyre in a library.

And like pointed out, its a meme. Krazy Kat, which I like, doesnt resonate to people like C&H, so i feel like the comparison isnt as sound as you think.

kids relate to Calvin, Krazy Kat is almost surreal and, honestly, the humor is gonna fall flat for many people.

I mention grade school because I bet i can call up any kid I knew and theyll be like " i love calvin and hobbes"

Stuff like Pogo and Krazy Kat are very much their time, Calvin and hobbes and Peanuts are more relatable to people's lives, and with the internet and people being very selfish and self absorbed, Calvin and Hobbes isnt going to be forgotten

>Jim Davis, who he himself has said to not give a shit about Garfield and only made him as a way to sell merch and make money.
Citation fucking needed.

Jim Davis cared quite a bit. That's why there is so much quality Garfield stuff like the show and the specials. It's only later on that he stopped caring as much.

If you want a depressing story, go look up the history of Garfield's Judgement Day, the TV special that never happened.

Watterson just didn't want to see his creations plastered all over. It was his creation and the only person who really suffered from it was him, by denying himself literally millions.

Having read Calvin and Hobbes I doubt the man would burn a handmade tiger stitched together by a little girl.
He definitley comes off as kinder than that.

outsidethebeltway.com/garfield-isnt-funny-and-was-never-supposed-to-be/

I'd say it worked pretty well.

from what i just checked, dude has a net worth of $450 million. jesus christ, why was I born now wanting to be a cartoonist

>On the other hand, he was kind of an asshole about it, preaching this high moral ground like all of the other cartoonists (including Charles M. Schulz, the author of Peanuts, with whom he was friends) were morons and sellouts, and denying his fanbase -most of which was composed of children- any kind of harmless and pre-approved toy; rumors have that he even went as far as burning a stuffed Hobbes that a fan stitched on her own and sent him as a gift
nigger, shut your festering wound

Yeah he and he could have had a lot more by approving toys, plushes, stickers, etc. Bill just enjoyed making comics. He fought hard to keep C&H the way he designed. He had to make sure papers wouldn't smush or shrink his art. Bill's an interesting guy.

>clickbait title
>quotes from business faggots saying the things you claim Davis himself said
>article even admits that Davis was personally involved in all of the merch and side stuff early on
>the actual quotes from Davis show someone who was at the very least interested in creating something new that people would like
>blog that is written by a crazy grumpy person
the suicide ledge is thataway

Ok, I found a source

mentalfloss.com/article/53216/mental-floss-exclusive-our-interview-bill-watterson

>Interviewer: "Purely for trivia and posterity’s sake, if you could indulge some (even more) inane queries: One story that’s made the rounds is that a plush toy manufacturer once delivered a box of Hobbes dolls to you unsolicited, which you promptly set ablaze. For people who share your low opinion of merchandising, this is a fairly delightful story. Did it actually happen?"
>Watterson: "Not exactly. It was only my head that burst into flames."


It's clear that the version I read was one of the fake "stories" mentioned here, I apologize for spreading misinformation

But still, he's very high–strung about this kind of stuff, maybe a bit too much? But again, after years of people nagging at you about it I would be kind of pissed too...

Bill Watterson was 100% right about everything he did

even killing the jews?

>Watterson is a wierdo
Why? Because he didn't want to milk his idea dry? He made more than enough money to retire comfortably at a young age and ended his comic while it was still fresh rather than letting it drag on decades past having any good ideas (The Simpsons). Why is it that being anything less than a complete corporate whore is seen as wrong or misguided?

you could also guess that he was joking about it, just to disregard the rumor. Not that I think he's some saint, just pointig out a possibility

>preaching this high moral ground like all of the other cartoonists (including Charles M. Schulz
peanuts had a incredible decline in quality over the years. Watterson was right

Kids love C&H and every school has 'em. The jokes are timeless... well, maybe not the ones about record players

This. Monetizing his work via book compilations worked fine for him, and he has the right to accept or deny the terms of his employment for any reason.

He made a classic of the art form without going broke or letting the work get rotten. Few can do the first, and many who do fail at the latter two.

>Well, saying that you don't want to be a sellout because of merch sort of implies that those who do have merch are sellouts
>implies
Other creators had the same rights he had. Having differing priorities doesn't make those priorities wrong.

Sure it's sad that Snoopy and the gang are advertising fucking MetLife long after the creator and the comics are dead, but would we trade that for the animated specials?

Man decided he wanted some extra cash to provide for his family, and accepted those terms. Some dumb shit came out of it and some good shit came out of it, but his control of any of this lay in the terms he accepted.

Had Watterson accepted similar terms, we could have gotten a classic cartoon. Or maybe we'd have gotten some bullshit that rushed out 100 episodes, became a classic staple of CN back when they were all reruns. Maybe that's what C&H would be remembered for now. There's no real way to know.

>All this Krazy Kat hate
>Kids not growing up with big books of Krazy Kat, Flash Gordon, and Buck Rogers
We get it, your childhood was fucking tragic.

but it wasnt because of merchandise or selling out.

When you do a daily strip for over 20 years, sooner or later the decline is inevitable. Peanuts, while Im not gonna say the golden years were all masterworks, was pretty steady for a while until the strip got visibly worse in its art

Assuming what you said is true, then yes he was right and had reason to be an asshole.

My understanding is that he was begged to merchandize and was even offered a cartoon. That shit is pretty uncommon for a newspaper comic right off the bat. This means he probably got hounded relentlessly to sell out and whore his stuff. Shit like that gets old after awhile.

Neither right nor wrong really, he did what made sense for him. Some people need to sell merchandise just to support themselves and keep making the things they care about, he was lucky enough not to have to. Also, some people genuinely enjoy merchandise and find it meaningful, a beloved toy or other object.

Also, a middle ground does exist between no merchandise at all and what you see with Garfield.

He did what was right for him and made sense for him. It's also a scale. He didn't make his comics for free so he didn't operate outside of capitalism or free himself totally from association with say the newspapers he published in and their messages either.

So I think he made the right call and should be respected but that doesn't make the different approaches of others wrong either.

He's white...

This joke:

>Interviewer: "Purely for trivia and posterity’s sake, if you could indulge some (even more) inane queries: One story that’s made the rounds is that a plush toy manufacturer once delivered a box of Hobbes dolls to you unsolicited, which you promptly set ablaze. For people who share your low opinion of merchandising, this is a fairly delightful story. Did it actually happen?"
>Watterson: "Not exactly. It was only my head that burst into flames."

Gets turned into this post:

>rumors have that he even went as far as burning a stuffed Hobbes that a fan stitched on her own and sent him as a gift

Jesus fuck, does anyone else ever feel like millennials and the internet generation are gonna destroy the world?

People have been exactly this retarded since forever. It's not and has never been specific to any one generation.

no you idiot he's Jewish!

And sadly, neither is the narrative of

>MY generation was doing great, but then THEIR generation ruined everything!

It's a vicious cycle that we're doomed to repeat.

the weirdest part of the whole C&H merchandising thing is how everyone reacted. a newspaper cartoonist says he doesn't want to license his work for merchandising and then suddenly it's all "ARROGANT CARTOONIST DESTROYS CURE FOR CANCER, BURNS DOWN ORPHANAGE, LAUGHS AT YOUR SMALL DICK"

but i guess that's what happens when you deny newspaper syndicates the right to exploit you for shekels. they smear you.

in the media.

which they own.

I think OP got his answer. But seriously, weren't the boards the actual comics were drawn on way bigger than what was printed? That picture is bothering me.

Im sure it differed. the sundays were definitely bigger to replicate the old sunday comics like Little Nemo