Calvin & Hobbes vs. Garfield
Submitted by jim on Mon, 11/07/2005 - 13:04
Tags:
Chris Suellentrop has a piece on Slate, Calvin and Hobbes: The last great newspaper comic strip. Be sure to launch the slideshow, as that's where the meat is:
Watterson refused to license a single Calvin and Hobbes product: no dolls, no greeting cards, no boxer shorts, no TV shows. Without specifically naming, say, Jim Davis of Garfield, Watterson scorned the cartoonists who enlist teams of assistants to draw their strips while they dream up new products for their corporate empires. Unfortunately for Watterson, though, the public perception of his strip was affected by unlicensed products. Replace the water balloon in the leftmost panel of the middle row in this strip with the Ford logo or Osama Bin Laden, and you have the image of Peeing Calvin, still slapped on the back window of pickup trucks across the nation. In part because of Peeing Calvin, the selfish brattiness of Watterson's character is remembered more than his sweetness, or his laziness, or his environmentalism. Peeing Calvin proves Watterson right: A static logo fails to capture the nuances of his characters, and it also limits the public's understanding of them. (Syrupy, sentimental Calvin posters in the school nurse's office would have had the same effect.)
« via The Morning News »
While I was studying philosophy at uni, I was told a story, perhaps apocryphal, of an eccentric academic who was an authority on Thomas Hobbes. He (the academic) was reputed to have five house-cats that he had named Solitary, Poor, Nasty, Brutish, and Short.
Heh. Apocryphal or no, I like it.
I love to read someone wax eloquent about Bill Waterson's work. I loved Calvin & Hobbes dearly, and largely stopped reading comics with any real interest after they stopped. I still read them, but none could cause me to race my Dad to the door when we hear the newspaper arrive.
I can't help thinking, though, that if Waterson had taken control of at least some of the (inevitable) merchandising, people may not have played so fast and loose with his image.
I agree: nobody is working at the genius level Watterson was. I like Dilbert and Zits quite a bit, but there's no magic there. I remain in awe of Gary Trudeau and Doonesbury though: such a high level of quality over such a long period of time. Nobody has aged so well (Watterson and Gary Larson of Far Side fame didn't even try).
However, I do think we would have ended up with "Peeing Calvin" unless Watterson completely cut loose merchandising reins. I think the only way you avoid unlicensed stuff is by saturating the market with licenced stuff. That's a different kind of damage though. Even with the bootlegs, there was never an annoying sense of Calvin & Hobbes merchandise ubiquity like you get with Garfield or Dilbert, and I really appreciated that.
In fact, I would get a small subversive thrill seeing the (occasionally) clever bootlegs just because I knew that they weren't Watterson-approved. The reason that "Peeing Calvin" kept on being used was because it kept on being cool... and the reason it kept on being cool was because Calvin was never used to sell licensed shirts.
...or coffee mugs. Or Band-Aids. Or cereal prizes. Or paperweights. Or hats...
Or plush toys... think how awful it would be if you could buy a stuffed Hobbes. I think that would have broken the deep emotional bond that I still have with an imaginary tiger who might be real.
" The reason that 'Peeing Calvin' kept on being used was because it kept on being cool..."
Wow, there are weeks I believe I live on a different planet than everybody else, and this is certainly one of them.
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
"Cool" being highly subjective, of course. I suspect 0dysseus is referring to "majority cool" rather than "everybody else cool", and I sure would be surprised if the Trojan Horse sports a "Peeing Calvin" decal. One of those "No Fear" decals, on the other hand...
I'll assume the best and belive that Sir/Madame 0dysseus is referring to majority cool, or medium cool, and not everybdoy else cool, his/her (forget plurals; we need a third person gender neutral pronoun just for secretive Listology members!) cool, or Cool Runnings (which I saw on the big screen and hated).
It may be the regular world's idea of cool, and in that case, I'll just have to paraphrase AJ's recent post; really, world, it is not you, it is me. I'm not sure I really believe that, but it is at least possible. Given how out of step I am with the world, or at least this piece around me, I guess the odds are good...
As for the subversive rush, the eyes of Buddy and I are level. It may be illegal, but it is also stupid, banal, and boring and about as subversive as a lynching mob.
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Some people march to the beat of a different drummer... so what should I do with my accordion player?
Trying to deconstruct my own usage I think that I was using "cool" in a self-deterministic way. I assume(d) that "they" wouldn’t be putting the shirts on their backs if "they" didn’t think it was "cool". Perhaps "they"’re "cool"er than that... but I have my doubts. I live in a universe that is cooling very slowly and has a fair number of Calvinist bootlegs. I’m assuming that "cool" was the impetus but, as is often the case, there’s many a slip twixt the cup and hip.
I’m not sure if I was feeling subversive because of my deeper purer love of Calvinism, my appreciation of appropriated art/images or my admiration of Watterson’s decision not to prostitute himself like "that". Whatever the motivation, the response engendered has me prepared for a subversion submersion... which may prove to be the lynchpin of my reaction. SubVersion: ParthianClass.
The stream of consciousness brings to my mind Monty Python's Life of Brian
You don't need to follow me. You don't need to follow anybody! You've got to think for yourselves. You're all individuals!
Yes, we're all individuals!
You are all different!
Yes, we are all different!
I'm not.
Shhhh!
The bumper sticker I used? NO BLOOD FOR HELEN
Parthian class dismissed.
Now, now. A bumper sticker does not a revisionist history make.
Where were you exactly before the towers toppled?
Unless this is that irony thing the kids keep talking about. ..
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Hey, I didn't want to go to war in the first place. If "No Pal O'Mine" Palamides hadn't been babysitting I would have spent my time with the family in Ithaca. (By Apollo! I do hate oaths.) To quote some ffolkes, "Personally I'm against the war. Helen is flat-chested."
Me and the boys were in the horse when it all went down. We tried to make the Trojans think we had gone home. Some woman playing Cassandra said, "No one should trust Greeks bearing gifts." This made Antielus cry out, "Don't look a gift horse in the belly!" So I strangled him. King Priam then lost a game of Sinon-Says.
But I'm convinced that what sealed the deal was the 8-track we left behind: Mellow Sounds of the 1170s B.C. We were all really big Styx fans back in the day. Except for Echion. He was a fan of the Little River Band... so we kicked him out of the horse with no name. *I'm saaaailing a-way...* still can't believe they listened to that garbage.
We did have other bumper stickers. Honk if you believe in Oracles, MY OTHER HORSE IS PEGASUS, ITHACA RULES! and Love makes a Family. The funny thing is that we forgot to take down the suction-cup message: EPEIUS on BOARD... still can't believe it all worked. How could so many Trojans provide such little protection?
No, I'm in with LBangs on this one. "Peeing Calvin" is cool in no universe I'm familiar with.
And subversive? To a guy who's subverting the mainstream by staunchly refusing to merchanise his own (very merchandisable) characters? To my logic, that brings us back around to mainstream. And hence, not cool.
"Peeing Calvin" is not cool in my universe either. But clearly it's "cool" in the universe of people that sport it on their vehicles.
It is entirely possible though that the only people that think it's cool are those that sport it, and they do not invoke the "boy, he's cool" response that they are hoping for in anyone else.
This whole discussion calls to mind one of Waterson's own Calvin strips. Calvin buys a logoed t-shirt, and explains to Hobbes that he's paying the company to advertise their product, as well as aligning himself with their corporate image of rebellious youth. Hobbes points out that he's expressing his individuality by looking like everyone else.
Oh, and just to be all stream-of-consciousness, that particular strip calls to mind another comic, this time animated (at Spike & Mike's Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation, of course). Crudely drawn stick figures show a father and a little kid, with the little kid saying "I'm a consumer whore!" The fact that this particular frame was available in t-shirt form in the cinema lobby is an irony not lost on a savvy audience. I almost bought one, but I'm afraid I have a tendency to underestimate the sophistication of the general public, and didn't like the message I'd possibly be sending.
On the other hand, I may just buy this t-shirt from Glarkware (made by the fine folks who bring us Fametracker):
I *heart* irony
I almost bought one, but I'm afraid I have a tendency to underestimate the sophistication of the general public, and didn't like the message I'd possibly be sending.
Too funny. :-)
Oh yes, a stuffed Hobbes would have been a back-breaker!
I suppose that's true about merchandising. It just always broke my heart that the people who made bootleg merchandise so clearly didn't get Watterson's aesthetic and beliefs.