Bill
Watterson, the creator of Calvin and
Hobbes, is well known for being one of the funniest, most skilled,
intelligent and thought-provoking comic-strip authors ever.
He could put
together a strong case for being a great guy, so perhaps it’s not a surprise
that he’s also a good example of artistic integrity.
Watterson
never authorised any merchandise to be produced in association with the Calvin and Hobbes comic books.
For a
popular comic where one of the two characters is actually a cute plush toy,
that’s fairly incredible.
He obviously
felt that using his creation to sell breakfast cereal and pencil cases would
water-down the messages and the integrity of his work, and I have an enormous
amount of respect for this courageous decision.
But I also
think there’s another side to the story.
In the early
days of Seinfeld the first couple of seasons had been a bit of an underground
hit, and the network decided to move the show to a more prominent
time-slot. Larry David responded that if
people weren’t watching the show before, he didn’t want them watching now, just
because it was being played at prime-time.
The network executive asked him if he’d considered there were a lot of
people out there who hadn’t snubbed the show, they’d just never had a chance to hear about it yet.
Seinfeld
moved to the new time-slot, had 9 incredible seasons, went out at the top of
its game, and is now considered by many the greatest TV show of all time.
Larry David
was wrong to feel that a bigger audience would affect the integrity of the
show.
When I first
heard of Calvin and Hobbes I was
already in high school.
Had there
been Calvin and Hobbes T-shirts,
erasers, base-ball caps and plush toys surrounding me as a kid it’s almost
certain that I would’ve had the chance to read the comic strips in my
childhood.
Would the
merchandise have lowered my opinion of the comic? Absolutely not.
Even now I
have nothing but respect (and a fair amount of longing) for the merchandise of
artwork that I love, such as Ghibli’s animated masterpieces.
 |
| Embrace the want. Become the want. |
And I’m certainly not the least cynical
consumer out there.
The point
is; people are always going to buy stuff they don’t need. Refusing to print pencil cases will not
reduce the number of pencil-cases out there, only a change in the demand for
pencil-cases will do that.
Perhaps the
world has changed since the 90s, but I find people these days are ready to
forgive a work its merchandise. If I were to judge Southpark based on its wealth
of bogan attire I would miss out on the show’s hilariously witty social
commentary.
The decision
by Bill Watterson not to sell-out may’ve been good for him personally, but I
would argue against it being good for the comic strip, and even for comics as
an industry.
If someone
asked me in yr6 what the best comic-strip was I probably would’ve said
something like “Garfield”. Is that not a
bit of a shame?
Of course,
there are limits to how much selling-out is acceptable. Dumbing down the actual comic to appeal to a
broader audience would’ve been terrible (I’m looking at you Simpsons and
Futurama).
Luckily the
quality of Watterson’s work spoke for itself and the comic was able to seep in
to the public consciousness without bending over backwards, but there was every
chance that due to artistic integrity many of us might have lived and died without
ever reading Calvin and Hobbes.
Plus who
doesn’t want their own Hobbes? Damnit!
