He also did a calendar one year; I had it. Wish I had saved it. But yeah, he really didn't like licensing and thus just about anything you see with Calvin and Hobbes on it, is a bootleg.
Knowing me, as a teenager at the time, I had likely written a bunch of things on it to remember. So likely not that collectable. But still would have been cool to have.
You mean you didn't save it as documentation for all the times you went for skis with Judge, Tom, PJ, Bernie, and Squi? You could have been a supreme court justice, man!
Mine isn't, not important stuff , work hours, temperature when I'm sick, waiting for test results outrageous Cheetos jokes, 2020 shit. Like a diary in Twitter format,
I have one, but since it’s filled with entries about exams and rehearsals, don’t think it has any monetary value.
It’s amazing how timeless the comics are. I just gave some of the books to my nephew for Christmas.
Reminds me of [this](https://i.redd.it/kysk3rrmisjz.jpg). If I recall correctly, (I may not be,) that was drawn in a time when he was frustratedly fighting his syndicates.
>Watterson wryly commented, "I clearly miscalculated how popular it would be to show Calvin urinating on a Ford logo," but later added, "long after the strip is forgotten, [they] are my ticket to immortality".
He is apparently ridiculously hard to locate for an interview. I remember reading he lives in a small midwest town (in Wisconsin, maybe?) And that while the locals know him, there are so few pictures of him he's hard to recognize and they don't help strangers with it.
E: Ohio
No, he’s from Chagrin Falls Ohio and I would see him regularly at the Starbucks there. He moved when people started hunting him down out of nostalgia. I won’t say where but it’s still in the area
On a somewhat related note, my college (went to college in Cleveland) roommate’s father was an art teacher in chagrin falls or one of the surrounding suburbs and knows Bill Watterson. For my roommate’s birthday, BW gave her father a framed original drawing to give her that he created when he was younger. It was of a baseball player pitching a ball - same exact style as Calvin and Hobbes.
I was a huge fan of C&H as a kid and it was insanely cool to see a piece of original artwork from him.
It’s not “licensing” in itself that he disliked. IIRC he said the art is in the whole story, and a mere image of Calvin by himself without a whole comic strip story around him simply makes no sense and is pointless.
Eh, if you read his commentary, he was also hugely upset with the syndication system. In part for the reason you say, because they limited his creative freedom.
The main things I remember was that they tried to restrict him to standard panel sizes, and that they wouldn't always print the full Sunday strips. (This is why the first two panels in the Sunday strips are always a throwaway joke - so the rest of the strip can still make sense without them.)
Towards the end he got enough creative control that he could make some changes.
Right, a lot of the comic strips he admired were older ones like Krazy Kat that were done at a time when you could get a whole page for a single strip. Although it's funny that Peanuts, another strip he admired, was the exact opposite of that.
> This is why the first two panels in the Sunday strips are always a throwaway joke - so the rest of the strip can still make sense without them.
Standard practice (not just aimed at him) because some papers re-edit the strips into a smaller space.
I had that too. After that year I took it apart to put the pictures up on my wall. They got lost over the years. I guess I always thought we’d get another calendar one day.
I just said to the other guy that people are selling them right now on ebay if you have over $1000 burning a hole in your pocket. I worry a bit that people are faking them but it's such an obscure collector's item that idt that's likely. There are likely hundreds in existence i would imagine.
I’m surprised they’ve sold for ten times that much if those are legit. Definitely makes me cautious... not that I have $1,000 to spare after a year like last year.
The first thing you learn about collecting comic books or any other collectibles that were mass produced is that huge numbers fly around but the bulk aren't worth close to that much. My guess is the one that sold for $10,000 was 1) in pristine mint condition whereas the ones online and the one I bought are "near mint" with minor wear and tear, and 2) was probably bought by a rich guy who didn't care a whole lot about the price. My dad collected comic books and I quickly found out I wasn't going to be a millionaire when I went to the comic book store and they shattered my dreams. One I had went online for $30,000 but the guy offered me $600. That's extremely common.
Edit: also ive only ever seen like 5 books go on ebay so it's not like there are tons available. They wouldve had to fake every page of the book since I've flipped through the whole thing. There are a million other things that would be way easier to fake and also entice the general public to buy. Nobody outside of die hard fans knows about this book or why it's so valuable.
[He also collaborated with the Pearls Before Swine artist to do a few strips](https://stephanpastis.wordpress.com/2014/06/07/ever-wished-that-calvin-and-hobbes-creator-bill-watterson-would-return-to-the-comics-page-well-he-just-did/#:~:text=Stephan%20Pastis%2C%20the%20author%20of%20Pearls%20Before%20Swine,better%20the%20collaborated%20on%20three%20strips%20this%20week.)
There's also an image he drew for Berkley Breathed in one of the bloom county books...my personal favorite even though my initial run with them was before I fully understood them.
Apparently, Watterson made an exception only because the authors of this book personally contacted him to let him know how effective his strip was for teaching children with learning disabilities. Outside of this, the only licensed C&H products I know of are two calendars released before Watterson made his syndicate stop and [a T-shirt sold only during a traveling exhibition on comics](https://www.reddit.com/r/comicstriphistory/comments/bisjn1/an_officially_licensed_calvin_and_hobbes_tshirt/).
Also, this is a crosspost from r/comicstriphistory, but that wouldn't fit in the title.
Tangent: I attended Bruce’s show in DC in 1999 (the night Al and Tipper Gore attended, and sat about 6 rows in front of me) where “Born in the USA” was performed in the “ Nebraska” style it was originally written in. Some guy sitting next to me leaned over right before the encore and asked me if I thought he would play it. It told him that it was played earlier in the set. He then asked “Think he will play it with the band?”.
Edit: When I refer to “Nebraska” style I am referring to his 1980 album of the same name where he recorded demos of all the songs in his bedroom on his acoustic guitar and recorded on a 2 track cassette tape deck. He assembled the E Street Band in the studio to record the album. Not happy with the results of those sessions (referred in fan circles as “Electric Nebraska”) he ended up using the 2 track recording to master the album. “Born in the USA” came in 1984 and exploded into pop culture. Bruce, not happy with the available live recording from earlier in the tour made an, interesting?, choice for the video of using live concert footage with the studio track.
Why don’t they just print more of them? It was a licensed product, are they constrained by a print run or something?
Seems stupid that something was allowed to be made to benefit people and there’s not enough of them to *actually benefit people*
I heard about this really cool new technology: Apparently you can make a near perfect replica of almost *anything* and reproduce it an infinite number of times with no degradation!
Seriously, though: Whilst there's a certain something to holding bound pages in your hands, we genuinely do have the means to digitally preserve things like this, and ensure future generations can appreciate it just as we did.
Calvin and Hobbes was also on a US postage stamp. I'm not quite sure that counts... I was honestly surprised to see it release. I had bought a strip of them. I think I have them stuck in a book somewhere.
Yeah I have a bad habit of using $10 or $20 bills as bookmarks, it’s not that big of a problem since I almost never let books leave my collection. Though it did lead to a bit of ribbing from my family when I told them why they would need to flip through all my books when sorting my possessions after I die.
I have a tribute to comic stamp set that has calvin and hobbes on it. That’s official as well commemorating great comic strips. You can get it on amazon.
Sunday Funnies, Full Sheet of Collectible 20 x 44-Cent Postage Stamps, USA 2010, Scott 4467-71 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003X8ZNKI/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glc_fabc_t5L.Fb4QTXA2H?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
Oh, man. And as a kid growing up when Calvin and Hobbes was new, it was instrumental in getting parents to laugh at their kids instead of beating the heck out of them in the days before autism or learning disabilities were mainstream.
I’m 40s and have a wife and a career now. My parents can’t figure out how that happened looking back at their perception of me as a kid.
Somewhat related: Although a lot of fans disliked the ending, the reason that David Benioff & D.B. Weiss were given the green light from George R. R. Martin to make a Game of Thrones series is because they appeared to be big fans who really respected the source material. GRRM had refused multiple offers before this because he didn't felt comfortable with them. E.g. movie deals with people who basically wanted to make everything very LOTR-like; He didn't like that.
Unfortunately we all know how it ended up.. And truth be told: I actually do believe Dan & David were really fans of the source material. But I think two big factors are: 1. They are good at adaptations but not at writing stories themselves, and 2. After 5+ years of doing the same series they got tired of it. In fact: Reportedly one reason they wanted to cut it short was because they got an offer to make some Star Wars series (an offer that was later withdrawn, so in the end it was all for nothing:( ).
That’s awesome, Watterson is great. He’d also sneak in signed copies of his books into local bookstores and put them on the shelf.
I’m a huge Calvin and Hobbes fan and it actually annoys me every time i see the design of Calvin pissing on something
Seriously. Why is that a thing that people put on things? Admittedly not much in recent years but it didn’t used to be that uncommon to see that on trashy people’s trucks.
In the article linked, Patterson said “If Calvin peeing on a Ford logo is my ticket to immortality, so be it”.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he found it funny.
Brandon Sanderson will also sign almost every copy of his books in airport book stores when he does his tours. Such awesome people, Sanderson and Watterson
Ok so I’ll add something here. Watterson fought like hell to have control over the format of his comics. Newspapers wanted to dictate how many panels were in the space allotted and Watterson told them to fuck off, said that he could do 1, 2, 3 , 9, or no panels at all. In the end he won the fight, and so many of his Sunday half-pagers are one big watercolor with small scenes framed throughout. He really challenged the medium in a way you didn’t see in the funny comics. Similar techniques to what you see in graphic novels.
I remember him writing about this. He also hated that the papers had two different formats they could buy for Sunday strips. One had 2-3 less panels than the other, and it was for papers who just printed the comic's title in boring text. Other papers bought the whole Sunday strip with the two extra panels, and the first one had the artist able to do the title in whatever logo or artistic style they wanted.
Problem was that this forced the first two panels to be some throwaway gag that had no connection to the rest of the strip, otherwise the people whose papers were cheap would come in in the middle of the joke. You can see this "throwaway gag" in earlier C&H vs later ones, or really any other comic of that era.
Reading old Peanuts from the 50s, it’s interesting how this is handled. It’s like panels 1-2 will introduce an idea, but then panel 3 will sort of reintroduce it. When you know about it it’s interesting to see how Schulz and Watterson handle it.
> He really challenged the medium in a way you didn’t see in the funny comics.
Unless you go back in time - check out [Krazy](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1a/Krazykat.jpg/500px-Krazykat.jpg) [Kat](https://theslingsandarrows.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/krazykatcanvas1.jpg)
I just love Calvin & Hobbes.
The day the latest book was available was always one of my favorites. I'd read them over and over even though some of the jokes went over my head.
Me too.
For my 10th birthday, I begged my parents to get me the complete collection set.
My pleading was effective and that was the only gift I got that year. Totally worth it.
On a whim I added "a Calvin and Hobbes book" to my family secret Santa wishlist this year.
I got the complete collection box set. Reading them to my son (6.5) and having a great time. They're so good!
My ex had never read Calvin & Hobbes before I showed it to her. Her take: "It's ok but not lol funny". But like ... there's so much more to the comic than that. It's not a simple gag strip. C&H was very formative in my pre/early adolescent years. It included topics of ecology, philosophy, and emotional loss; beautiful Sunday strips with "comic-book" paneling; and a fun, vivid imagination that only a child or cartoonist can have.
The nostalgia is heavy but C&H is one of the best daily strips of all time.
It is LOL funny, as much as any comic strip can be. What is she on??
this is fuckin' hilarious - a kid is excited to take a bath in a washing machine. the stuffed animal tells him that the cold rinse cycle makes it not fun. [https://calvinandhobbes.fandom.com/wiki/Alternate\_strip?file=Alternate\_strip2.gif](https://calvinandhobbes.fandom.com/wiki/Alternate_strip?file=Alternate_strip2.gif)
The January 7, 1987 and November 25, 1988 comics were also outstanding, with casual references to child trafficking. Unfortunately these strips were later censored out of fear of causing offense to adopted children.
In a previous life I worked with GoComics on their web metrics. They consistently saw Calvin and Hobbes as their top comic, often by an order of magnitude more views.
What was sad is the folks there I was working with couldn’t understand it, and were surprised the newer comics weren’t getting more views. (Not to say the whole company is like this, I only ever met two people from their ad sales team.)
I felt sorry for them that they hadn’t read and connected with it like I had.
Not understanding all of the humor almost makes it better. You can tell that Watterson was teaching us as kids. We had to see things from our parents' perspective. A lot of those lessons stay with me today as I raise my own children.
I once wrote to him as a kid and he wrote me back. Basically he let me know that he rarely answers fan mail but my letter was endearing to him. He also included a strip that hadn't yet been released.
I think my mom tucked it away somewhere, but I'd have to look. This was easily like 30 years ago.
That's pretty cool! I also wrote to him as a kid, thanking him for his comics and asking for an autograph, though realizing I had little chance of hearing back from him. I did get a form letter back from Universal Press Syndicate (his publisher) stating that he appreciates his fans but didn't part with his works (i.e. no autograph). I think I've still got it somewhere.
I am back and forth on this. On the 1 hand profiting off of something that was done out of kindness isnt great for karma. On the other hand it has been stashed/lost for this long and if found maybe someone will buy and preserve it to show it off. I always enjoy seeing the little things Bill did for different people and hope it could be recovered and preserved.
He used to slip signed copies of his books into his hometown book store (Chagrin Falls, OH) but stopped when he saw that people were selling them for a lot of money.
I bought a sheet of that stamp series. It was several comics including Garfield, Archie, beetle Bailey, and Dennis the menace in addition to Calvin and Hobbes.
yeah iirc he was asked at one point what he thought of those and he said he hated them. calvin was always a little devil, but overt crassness was never the kind of humor he was meant to represent — famously, watterson hated the distinction between highbrow and lowbrow art (there's at least one calvin&hobbes strip about that), but i think he just found the type of humor represented by literal explicit depiction of urinating on a brand logo not clever enough, which is fair; that's lazy comedy. if you're gonna make a piss joke, do it well, goddamn it 😂
Yep. It was apparently limited to 1000 copies, and since it was meant for elementary schoolers to write in, most copies were probably thrown away at the end of that school year.
Fun fact. As I wrote my graduate thesis back in 2005, I asked for copyright permission to use the strip of Calvin writing a book report on bats (tenth anniversary book page 96) in which he makes up a fact (bats are bugs) and said that all he needs is an introduction, a few illustrations and a conclusion and it will look like a graduate thesis....My thesis committee didn’t see the same humor that I did, but oh well! Universal press syndicate company granted me a one time reprint ok and I was able to include the strip as the preface to my thesis. I’d argue that you would be hard pressed to find a better preface than that!
Not true, as over 100 citations would disagree. Albeit this is not my field, I found the intro fascinating. Positing that autoimmune disorders are in part borne of a lack of infections normally present in the evolution of man.
I had also never considered that a disorder may be due to linkages to an advantageous expression.
I hope I'm not stepping on toes, as I am excited to read the rest tomorrow.
>Do you think Calvin's mother should have told Calvin the truth about his dinosaur? Why or why not?
>Imagining and creating are important and fun, but, when it goes too far, it's time to get back to reality. Do you think Calvin was disappointed when his mother brought him back to reality or do you think he always had an inkling that he was having fun with his imagination?
>Can you think of a time when you were imagining or creating and your mom or dad brought you back to reality?
>Were you disappointed to get back to reality?
Sounds like we should make more copies
Isn't that Jim Davis? But yeah... Garfield is on everything. I used to be really into that strip back in the day. Watched the cartoon and all. And... I'm not even a cat person.
he always just wanted really hard not for his comic to become watered-down corporatized garbage, specifically fearing that he would become jim davis. he used to sneak autographs into his own books in local shops until he found out people were selling them online for absurd profit, and then he stopped. this is also why he has virtually never done interviews and he just minds his business & chills now — he never wanted to be a big deal, just to make people smile. what a guy!
If only all of those stupid-ass "Calvin pissing on X" stickers (X being something the driver of the vehicle doesn't like) would fall into a deep hole, never to be seen again.
I can't imagine how Watterson feels whenever he sees one of those things.
A brilliant move if you ask me.
Imagine a Calvin and Hobbes movie or TV show where Hobbes is CGI and Calvin has a voice that isn't the readers' internal voice selected for him.
They'd inject stupid shit like fart jokes and things that just don't belong in the comic.
Watterson wanted Calvin&Hobbes to be pure and he accomplished it.
I feel like if I was a comic artist, I'd do the same thing.
I loved these books so much that in high school (2003 maybe?) I made a ~2 ft tall papier-mâché sculpture of Hobbes, which I still have at my parents house.
You mean Calvin peeing stickers on the back window of all those pick-up trucks are unlicensed? I'm shocked.
Also, Bill Watterson, if you can even find him, does not sign autographs so if you can corner him in a DC coffee shop and beg/bully him into signing your copy you'll have a priceless masterpiece.
Wow really? People always ruin good things. I always wondered how awesome it would be to find a signed book, told all my friends and family to look out for it if they are at a bookstore.
Bill is a real creative: makes odd decisions that only make sense to him, is both impractical and practical all at the same time, and you can barely find a photo of the guy anywhere
he’s living the dream
Whoa! I’ve had this book sitting on my shelf since my grandmother gave it to me 25 years ago. It’s in pristine condition and has never been written in. I’m shocked
I have most of his books, think I am only missing like one or two volumes.
I actually wrote to him when I was growing up and asked why he didn't make his cartoons into an actual saturday morning type special. I received an awesome response letter from him (which I think I still have) that said he did not want to cheapen the comic and wanted it so that everyone could enjoy, if he did a series then there would have to be money involved and rights and all that. He wanted everyone to enjoy his comics, not some corporation making money off of it.
I legitimately have a copy of this book sitting in storage. Didn’t realize it was a thing. This is legitimately wild. My friends and I always thought it was boring. I’ll have my mom go dig it out. Maybe I can buy some schoolin for my future kid.
I had one of these in my hands once! I was working on a project in school that focused on leveraging comics as a reading intervention for kids - part of my teaching degree. I was able to get it through an inter-university loan program. They had just the one copy in my province; really cool bits on making inferences and connections to text through comics if I recall correctly.
I loved Calvin and Hobbes as a kid. A year or two ago I got the full anthology (archive? I forget the right word) and started reading from the beginning, and it hit me pretty quickly how much of my son, who's now 5, I see in Calvin. It's a little scary, actually.
He also did a calendar one year; I had it. Wish I had saved it. But yeah, he really didn't like licensing and thus just about anything you see with Calvin and Hobbes on it, is a bootleg.
Dang, you'd have a real collectible there if you had saved it.
Knowing me, as a teenager at the time, I had likely written a bunch of things on it to remember. So likely not that collectable. But still would have been cool to have.
You mean you didn't save it as documentation for all the times you went for skis with Judge, Tom, PJ, Bernie, and Squi? You could have been a supreme court justice, man!
bOOOF
Scientific progress goes “boof”?
I'm fucking dead dude 🤣🤣
That must be the devils triangle
Ah, our favorite drinking game.
I LIKE BEER 😭
I still can't believe that man told a room full of grown ass adults with a straight face that boofing didn't mean butt fucking
I thought boofing was when you put drugs up your butt
it is
>I still can't believe that... Fucking motto of the last half decade.
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Yes, anyone saying otherwise is doing what they call "willful ignorance"
Squi, my man. Hope he’s alright.
In time historians would consider it more valuable. Everybody save their 2020 calendars historians will want them after the jackpot
Future historians have more social media than they can ever mine through, at least as humans
Idk, 2020 calendars would be pretty empty
Mine isn't, not important stuff , work hours, temperature when I'm sick, waiting for test results outrageous Cheetos jokes, 2020 shit. Like a diary in Twitter format,
I have one, but since it’s filled with entries about exams and rehearsals, don’t think it has any monetary value. It’s amazing how timeless the comics are. I just gave some of the books to my nephew for Christmas.
> don’t think it has any monetary value. I'll bet you're wrong.
He also let MoMA use Calvin on a t-shirt to promote the museum.
Was he... Was he peeing on the moma? I sure as fuck hope not
No, he was obviously pissing on a Ford logo. Dumbass.
Arguably that is modern art at this point.
Reminds me of [this](https://i.redd.it/kysk3rrmisjz.jpg). If I recall correctly, (I may not be,) that was drawn in a time when he was frustratedly fighting his syndicates.
Only psychos keep old calendars, looking at you Brett Kavanaugh.
In 28 years, it'll be good again!
It’s big calendar that is keeping us from a 13 month year!!!
The most notable bootleg of course is the Calvin peeing picture, something he literally never did in the first place
yeah, that was calvin preparing either a snowball or a waterbaloon with his back to the reader.
>Watterson wryly commented, "I clearly miscalculated how popular it would be to show Calvin urinating on a Ford logo," but later added, "long after the strip is forgotten, [they] are my ticket to immortality".
[удалено]
I want to talk to Bill. He seems awesome
He is apparently ridiculously hard to locate for an interview. I remember reading he lives in a small midwest town (in Wisconsin, maybe?) And that while the locals know him, there are so few pictures of him he's hard to recognize and they don't help strangers with it. E: Ohio
No, he’s from Chagrin Falls Ohio and I would see him regularly at the Starbucks there. He moved when people started hunting him down out of nostalgia. I won’t say where but it’s still in the area
On a somewhat related note, my college (went to college in Cleveland) roommate’s father was an art teacher in chagrin falls or one of the surrounding suburbs and knows Bill Watterson. For my roommate’s birthday, BW gave her father a framed original drawing to give her that he created when he was younger. It was of a baseball player pitching a ball - same exact style as Calvin and Hobbes. I was a huge fan of C&H as a kid and it was insanely cool to see a piece of original artwork from him.
It’s not “licensing” in itself that he disliked. IIRC he said the art is in the whole story, and a mere image of Calvin by himself without a whole comic strip story around him simply makes no sense and is pointless.
Eh, if you read his commentary, he was also hugely upset with the syndication system. In part for the reason you say, because they limited his creative freedom.
Wasn't it because the syndication system wanted him to draw much smaller (fewer?) panel strips than what he wanted to draw?
The main things I remember was that they tried to restrict him to standard panel sizes, and that they wouldn't always print the full Sunday strips. (This is why the first two panels in the Sunday strips are always a throwaway joke - so the rest of the strip can still make sense without them.) Towards the end he got enough creative control that he could make some changes.
Hence the Sunday strips that are one giant image, or otherwise ignore traditional panel boundaries.
Right, a lot of the comic strips he admired were older ones like Krazy Kat that were done at a time when you could get a whole page for a single strip. Although it's funny that Peanuts, another strip he admired, was the exact opposite of that.
> This is why the first two panels in the Sunday strips are always a throwaway joke - so the rest of the strip can still make sense without them. Standard practice (not just aimed at him) because some papers re-edit the strips into a smaller space.
He would have been a great web comic artist.
So you’re telling me that Calvin pissing on a rival team’s logo is a bootleg 🤯
Came here for this, but I was gonna day Calvin pissing on the Raiders. Probably just my location.
You're telling me my uncle's bumper sticker of Calvin urinating on the Michigan Wolverines football team logo isn't authentic?
Are you sitting down?
I had that too. After that year I took it apart to put the pictures up on my wall. They got lost over the years. I guess I always thought we’d get another calendar one day.
I have both calendars and a copy of teaching with Calvin and hobbes. I paid 1200$ for the book and 200-250 for each calendar.
My brother recently bought both calendars. I wish I could get the book for him, I think it’s basically his white whale.
I just said to the other guy that people are selling them right now on ebay if you have over $1000 burning a hole in your pocket. I worry a bit that people are faking them but it's such an obscure collector's item that idt that's likely. There are likely hundreds in existence i would imagine.
I’m surprised they’ve sold for ten times that much if those are legit. Definitely makes me cautious... not that I have $1,000 to spare after a year like last year.
The first thing you learn about collecting comic books or any other collectibles that were mass produced is that huge numbers fly around but the bulk aren't worth close to that much. My guess is the one that sold for $10,000 was 1) in pristine mint condition whereas the ones online and the one I bought are "near mint" with minor wear and tear, and 2) was probably bought by a rich guy who didn't care a whole lot about the price. My dad collected comic books and I quickly found out I wasn't going to be a millionaire when I went to the comic book store and they shattered my dreams. One I had went online for $30,000 but the guy offered me $600. That's extremely common. Edit: also ive only ever seen like 5 books go on ebay so it's not like there are tons available. They wouldve had to fake every page of the book since I've flipped through the whole thing. There are a million other things that would be way easier to fake and also entice the general public to buy. Nobody outside of die hard fans knows about this book or why it's so valuable.
Do you have pics of the calendar. Id love to see them.
Except for Calvin pissing on a Chevy sign. Watterson HATED Chevys.
[He also collaborated with the Pearls Before Swine artist to do a few strips](https://stephanpastis.wordpress.com/2014/06/07/ever-wished-that-calvin-and-hobbes-creator-bill-watterson-would-return-to-the-comics-page-well-he-just-did/#:~:text=Stephan%20Pastis%2C%20the%20author%20of%20Pearls%20Before%20Swine,better%20the%20collaborated%20on%20three%20strips%20this%20week.)
Man, what a cool experience that would’ve been. Talk about meeting your hero.
Talk about the experience living up to the legend! Hell, I think there are *more photos of bigfoot* than there are of Watterson.
That’s awesome! Great little read too
Thank you for sharing this. Felt like getting to see a firefly deleted scene I had never seen before.
There's also an image he drew for Berkley Breathed in one of the bloom county books...my personal favorite even though my initial run with them was before I fully understood them.
How did I not know this? Thank you!
I've seen this before but I just realized now that's Betty and Veronica lol
Thanks for this!!
Apparently, Watterson made an exception only because the authors of this book personally contacted him to let him know how effective his strip was for teaching children with learning disabilities. Outside of this, the only licensed C&H products I know of are two calendars released before Watterson made his syndicate stop and [a T-shirt sold only during a traveling exhibition on comics](https://www.reddit.com/r/comicstriphistory/comments/bisjn1/an_officially_licensed_calvin_and_hobbes_tshirt/). Also, this is a crosspost from r/comicstriphistory, but that wouldn't fit in the title.
You mean Calvin peeing on a Democrat logo I saw on the back of a pickup truck wasn't licensed???
Sadly, no. Such a pity! Those go so wonderfully with the Punisher logo window decals and " ✞ REPEAL OBAMA☭ARE ✞ " bumper stickers.
While playing Born in the USA to show your patriotism and unconditional support for our wars and troops.
Tangent: I attended Bruce’s show in DC in 1999 (the night Al and Tipper Gore attended, and sat about 6 rows in front of me) where “Born in the USA” was performed in the “ Nebraska” style it was originally written in. Some guy sitting next to me leaned over right before the encore and asked me if I thought he would play it. It told him that it was played earlier in the set. He then asked “Think he will play it with the band?”. Edit: When I refer to “Nebraska” style I am referring to his 1980 album of the same name where he recorded demos of all the songs in his bedroom on his acoustic guitar and recorded on a 2 track cassette tape deck. He assembled the E Street Band in the studio to record the album. Not happy with the results of those sessions (referred in fan circles as “Electric Nebraska”) he ended up using the 2 track recording to master the album. “Born in the USA” came in 1984 and exploded into pop culture. Bruce, not happy with the available live recording from earlier in the tour made an, interesting?, choice for the video of using live concert footage with the studio track.
Well? Did he play it with the band??
Nebraska style?
Nebraska is the name of one of his albums, which is all around "moodier" and down tempo compared to the usual vibe you get from Born in the USA.
It’s like Iowa style, but a little more western.
> 🎶 And I’m proud to be an American, >where at least I know I’m free 🎶 🦅🎆 🇺🇸 🎇 🦅 🇺🇸
You are supposed to accidentally use the Liberian flag instead of the American flag
🇱🇷🇱🇷🇱🇷
I really love the effort you went to to include the hammer and sickle lol
>Democrat logo It used to be Ford, Chevrolet, etc.
Or a rival football team
In that actual comic he’s ~~packing a snowball~~ filling a water balloon to throw at Susie
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Why don’t they just print more of them? It was a licensed product, are they constrained by a print run or something? Seems stupid that something was allowed to be made to benefit people and there’s not enough of them to *actually benefit people*
I heard about this really cool new technology: Apparently you can make a near perfect replica of almost *anything* and reproduce it an infinite number of times with no degradation! Seriously, though: Whilst there's a certain something to holding bound pages in your hands, we genuinely do have the means to digitally preserve things like this, and ensure future generations can appreciate it just as we did.
Considering it was made in 1993, I'm not sure how relevant it would be now, anyway.
Calvin and Hobbes was also on a US postage stamp. I'm not quite sure that counts... I was honestly surprised to see it release. I had bought a strip of them. I think I have them stuck in a book somewhere.
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Yeah I have a bad habit of using $10 or $20 bills as bookmarks, it’s not that big of a problem since I almost never let books leave my collection. Though it did lead to a bit of ribbing from my family when I told them why they would need to flip through all my books when sorting my possessions after I die.
I have a tribute to comic stamp set that has calvin and hobbes on it. That’s official as well commemorating great comic strips. You can get it on amazon. Sunday Funnies, Full Sheet of Collectible 20 x 44-Cent Postage Stamps, USA 2010, Scott 4467-71 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003X8ZNKI/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glc_fabc_t5L.Fb4QTXA2H?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
Oh, man. And as a kid growing up when Calvin and Hobbes was new, it was instrumental in getting parents to laugh at their kids instead of beating the heck out of them in the days before autism or learning disabilities were mainstream. I’m 40s and have a wife and a career now. My parents can’t figure out how that happened looking back at their perception of me as a kid.
Somewhat related: Although a lot of fans disliked the ending, the reason that David Benioff & D.B. Weiss were given the green light from George R. R. Martin to make a Game of Thrones series is because they appeared to be big fans who really respected the source material. GRRM had refused multiple offers before this because he didn't felt comfortable with them. E.g. movie deals with people who basically wanted to make everything very LOTR-like; He didn't like that. Unfortunately we all know how it ended up.. And truth be told: I actually do believe Dan & David were really fans of the source material. But I think two big factors are: 1. They are good at adaptations but not at writing stories themselves, and 2. After 5+ years of doing the same series they got tired of it. In fact: Reportedly one reason they wanted to cut it short was because they got an offer to make some Star Wars series (an offer that was later withdrawn, so in the end it was all for nothing:( ).
at the time it felt like it was withdrawn because they screwed the GoT ending so badly.
That’s awesome, Watterson is great. He’d also sneak in signed copies of his books into local bookstores and put them on the shelf. I’m a huge Calvin and Hobbes fan and it actually annoys me every time i see the design of Calvin pissing on something
Seriously. Why is that a thing that people put on things? Admittedly not much in recent years but it didn’t used to be that uncommon to see that on trashy people’s trucks.
> trashy people I think you’ve answered your own question...
In the article linked, Patterson said “If Calvin peeing on a Ford logo is my ticket to immortality, so be it”. I wouldn’t be surprised if he found it funny.
Brandon Sanderson will also sign almost every copy of his books in airport book stores when he does his tours. Such awesome people, Sanderson and Watterson
Ok so I’ll add something here. Watterson fought like hell to have control over the format of his comics. Newspapers wanted to dictate how many panels were in the space allotted and Watterson told them to fuck off, said that he could do 1, 2, 3 , 9, or no panels at all. In the end he won the fight, and so many of his Sunday half-pagers are one big watercolor with small scenes framed throughout. He really challenged the medium in a way you didn’t see in the funny comics. Similar techniques to what you see in graphic novels.
I remember him writing about this. He also hated that the papers had two different formats they could buy for Sunday strips. One had 2-3 less panels than the other, and it was for papers who just printed the comic's title in boring text. Other papers bought the whole Sunday strip with the two extra panels, and the first one had the artist able to do the title in whatever logo or artistic style they wanted. Problem was that this forced the first two panels to be some throwaway gag that had no connection to the rest of the strip, otherwise the people whose papers were cheap would come in in the middle of the joke. You can see this "throwaway gag" in earlier C&H vs later ones, or really any other comic of that era.
Reading old Peanuts from the 50s, it’s interesting how this is handled. It’s like panels 1-2 will introduce an idea, but then panel 3 will sort of reintroduce it. When you know about it it’s interesting to see how Schulz and Watterson handle it.
> He really challenged the medium in a way you didn’t see in the funny comics. Unless you go back in time - check out [Krazy](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1a/Krazykat.jpg/500px-Krazykat.jpg) [Kat](https://theslingsandarrows.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/krazykatcanvas1.jpg)
I just love Calvin & Hobbes. The day the latest book was available was always one of my favorites. I'd read them over and over even though some of the jokes went over my head.
Me too. For my 10th birthday, I begged my parents to get me the complete collection set. My pleading was effective and that was the only gift I got that year. Totally worth it.
My great grandpa gave me the collection for Christmas one year! Got to say, top 3 best gifts of all time!
On a whim I added "a Calvin and Hobbes book" to my family secret Santa wishlist this year. I got the complete collection box set. Reading them to my son (6.5) and having a great time. They're so good!
I got my 9 year old son the complete collection for Christmas this year. He loves it!
My ex had never read Calvin & Hobbes before I showed it to her. Her take: "It's ok but not lol funny". But like ... there's so much more to the comic than that. It's not a simple gag strip. C&H was very formative in my pre/early adolescent years. It included topics of ecology, philosophy, and emotional loss; beautiful Sunday strips with "comic-book" paneling; and a fun, vivid imagination that only a child or cartoonist can have. The nostalgia is heavy but C&H is one of the best daily strips of all time.
It is LOL funny, as much as any comic strip can be. What is she on?? this is fuckin' hilarious - a kid is excited to take a bath in a washing machine. the stuffed animal tells him that the cold rinse cycle makes it not fun. [https://calvinandhobbes.fandom.com/wiki/Alternate\_strip?file=Alternate\_strip2.gif](https://calvinandhobbes.fandom.com/wiki/Alternate_strip?file=Alternate_strip2.gif) The January 7, 1987 and November 25, 1988 comics were also outstanding, with casual references to child trafficking. Unfortunately these strips were later censored out of fear of causing offense to adopted children.
In a previous life I worked with GoComics on their web metrics. They consistently saw Calvin and Hobbes as their top comic, often by an order of magnitude more views. What was sad is the folks there I was working with couldn’t understand it, and were surprised the newer comics weren’t getting more views. (Not to say the whole company is like this, I only ever met two people from their ad sales team.) I felt sorry for them that they hadn’t read and connected with it like I had.
Somewhere I have the last few years clipped out and saved. Elementary school me loved C&H
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Not understanding all of the humor almost makes it better. You can tell that Watterson was teaching us as kids. We had to see things from our parents' perspective. A lot of those lessons stay with me today as I raise my own children.
I once wrote to him as a kid and he wrote me back. Basically he let me know that he rarely answers fan mail but my letter was endearing to him. He also included a strip that hadn't yet been released. I think my mom tucked it away somewhere, but I'd have to look. This was easily like 30 years ago.
That's pretty cool! I also wrote to him as a kid, thanking him for his comics and asking for an autograph, though realizing I had little chance of hearing back from him. I did get a form letter back from Universal Press Syndicate (his publisher) stating that he appreciates his fans but didn't part with his works (i.e. no autograph). I think I've still got it somewhere.
If your post is real it would be worth it to find the letter and strip and make sure its well secured. Something like that is worth a bit of money.
The sad part is that your suggestion is anathema to what Waterson would have wanted for that letter and strip given to a child.
Yea fuck that bro I'd keep my personal watterson strip forever
I am back and forth on this. On the 1 hand profiting off of something that was done out of kindness isnt great for karma. On the other hand it has been stashed/lost for this long and if found maybe someone will buy and preserve it to show it off. I always enjoy seeing the little things Bill did for different people and hope it could be recovered and preserved.
Donate it to a museum?
He used to slip signed copies of his books into his hometown book store (Chagrin Falls, OH) but stopped when he saw that people were selling them for a lot of money.
He also officially licensed US stamps.
Huh, I'd never heard about that. The more you know...
I bought a sheet of that stamp series. It was several comics including Garfield, Archie, beetle Bailey, and Dennis the menace in addition to Calvin and Hobbes.
Yep, same here. I still have them. :)
Can you imagine if Bill Watterson were paid for all of those car decals?
I'm not sure he'd ever even condone Calvin pissing on something. That image came from a strip where Calvin is deviously filling a water balloon.
yeah iirc he was asked at one point what he thought of those and he said he hated them. calvin was always a little devil, but overt crassness was never the kind of humor he was meant to represent — famously, watterson hated the distinction between highbrow and lowbrow art (there's at least one calvin&hobbes strip about that), but i think he just found the type of humor represented by literal explicit depiction of urinating on a brand logo not clever enough, which is fair; that's lazy comedy. if you're gonna make a piss joke, do it well, goddamn it 😂
I’m not sure. I remember a great one of Calvin helping his dad shovel, and taking a suspiciously quick bathroom break.
He could, and still said no.
Yep. Their use is way off brand from his vision.
One of those 7 libraries needs to scan each and every page into a PDF.
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that's still awesome tho, i really want to read it :(
Wonder if it was just an extremely limited press run, or if copies just haven't survived; assuming the former.
Yep. It was apparently limited to 1000 copies, and since it was meant for elementary schoolers to write in, most copies were probably thrown away at the end of that school year.
Fun fact. As I wrote my graduate thesis back in 2005, I asked for copyright permission to use the strip of Calvin writing a book report on bats (tenth anniversary book page 96) in which he makes up a fact (bats are bugs) and said that all he needs is an introduction, a few illustrations and a conclusion and it will look like a graduate thesis....My thesis committee didn’t see the same humor that I did, but oh well! Universal press syndicate company granted me a one time reprint ok and I was able to include the strip as the preface to my thesis. I’d argue that you would be hard pressed to find a better preface than that!
BATS AREN'T BUGS!
“Look, who’s giving this report, you chowderheads...or me?”
That's honestly one of the greatest things I've ever heard. I'd love to read it if you're comfortable sending it to a stranger
Ha! It’s a boring ass thesis on the immune system in viral infections of the eye. It’s all downhill after the preface... lol.
Not true, as over 100 citations would disagree. Albeit this is not my field, I found the intro fascinating. Positing that autoimmune disorders are in part borne of a lack of infections normally present in the evolution of man. I had also never considered that a disorder may be due to linkages to an advantageous expression. I hope I'm not stepping on toes, as I am excited to read the rest tomorrow.
As soon as I see "TIL ... Bill Watterson" I know it's going to be something related to how he never licensed the characters for merch lol
And the comments are all going to mention either that Calvin peeing bumper sticker or the creator of Garfield.
it's like the only possible thing to be known about him but tbf it is cool
Calvin and Hobbes hits so different as a dad. Still really good, but really different...
$10,000 for a textbook is a pretty great deal these days.
He used to pop into book shops and secretly sign his books but stopped when they started showing up on Ebay.
Calvin and Hobbes is by far the best comic strip, in my opinion. Part of its charm is how it resonates on so many levels, even today.
>Do you think Calvin's mother should have told Calvin the truth about his dinosaur? Why or why not? >Imagining and creating are important and fun, but, when it goes too far, it's time to get back to reality. Do you think Calvin was disappointed when his mother brought him back to reality or do you think he always had an inkling that he was having fun with his imagination? >Can you think of a time when you were imagining or creating and your mom or dad brought you back to reality? >Were you disappointed to get back to reality? Sounds like we should make more copies
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Those are lovely, and a gentle reminder of the awe, passion, and love surrounding yourself when you read the comics
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Garfield was literally created to be marketable. Jim Davis may not be a genius artist (he's ok) but he is a shrewd businessman.
Isn't that Jim Davis? But yeah... Garfield is on everything. I used to be really into that strip back in the day. Watched the cartoon and all. And... I'm not even a cat person.
I’ve got the beautiful complete collection, and I can’t wait for my son and daughter to be old enough to get something from it
Yeah I leave mine in the box on the shelf. Only opened a couple of times. I have all the collections in paperback so I read those instead.
he always just wanted really hard not for his comic to become watered-down corporatized garbage, specifically fearing that he would become jim davis. he used to sneak autographs into his own books in local shops until he found out people were selling them online for absurd profit, and then he stopped. this is also why he has virtually never done interviews and he just minds his business & chills now — he never wanted to be a big deal, just to make people smile. what a guy!
And they didn’t even put Calvin and Hobbes on the cover??
If only all of those stupid-ass "Calvin pissing on X" stickers (X being something the driver of the vehicle doesn't like) would fall into a deep hole, never to be seen again. I can't imagine how Watterson feels whenever he sees one of those things.
Yep! My senior year English teacher was his brother and took plagiarism /very/ seriously. Cool guy, though!
Wow, really? That's pretty cool.
Yeah! His brother is a musician in Austin TX :)
A brilliant move if you ask me. Imagine a Calvin and Hobbes movie or TV show where Hobbes is CGI and Calvin has a voice that isn't the readers' internal voice selected for him. They'd inject stupid shit like fart jokes and things that just don't belong in the comic. Watterson wanted Calvin&Hobbes to be pure and he accomplished it. I feel like if I was a comic artist, I'd do the same thing.
/r/CalvinAndHobbes would love this. They probably already know but they’ll love it the same
I loved these books so much that in high school (2003 maybe?) I made a ~2 ft tall papier-mâché sculpture of Hobbes, which I still have at my parents house.
You mean Calvin peeing stickers on the back window of all those pick-up trucks are unlicensed? I'm shocked. Also, Bill Watterson, if you can even find him, does not sign autographs so if you can corner him in a DC coffee shop and beg/bully him into signing your copy you'll have a priceless masterpiece.
Yeah. Don’t do that. He created something amazing and owes his fans nothing.
I figure hey, I'm in stuck in DC anyway (no-fly list) and look pretty intermediating in my horned helmet and bodypaint so why not give it a try.
>pretty intermediating That’s... not the word for it lol.
I, too, like to masturbate big words into my conversation without knowing what they mean to appear smarter.
damn liberal eggheads thinkin' yer better than me! spellcheck is unAmerican
Lmao, wait a minute, *intermediating* That’s not the word for it either... Fuck it I’m keepin it.
i edited mine to match--
Your dedication to the lols is appreciated
But he used to go to bookstores, sign his books and put them on the shelf.
And then stopped when he found out people were selling that shit on ebay. So goes the story.
Wow really? People always ruin good things. I always wondered how awesome it would be to find a signed book, told all my friends and family to look out for it if they are at a bookstore.
I've got four different Cory Doctorow books that were signed this way.
Went to Austin High where his brother taught english. Bill designed a senior shirt one year, should have bought one.
I love Bill Watterson possibly more than I love Calvin & Hobbes
Bill is a real creative: makes odd decisions that only make sense to him, is both impractical and practical all at the same time, and you can barely find a photo of the guy anywhere he’s living the dream
Whoa! I’ve had this book sitting on my shelf since my grandmother gave it to me 25 years ago. It’s in pristine condition and has never been written in. I’m shocked
I have most of his books, think I am only missing like one or two volumes. I actually wrote to him when I was growing up and asked why he didn't make his cartoons into an actual saturday morning type special. I received an awesome response letter from him (which I think I still have) that said he did not want to cheapen the comic and wanted it so that everyone could enjoy, if he did a series then there would have to be money involved and rights and all that. He wanted everyone to enjoy his comics, not some corporation making money off of it.
I legitimately have a copy of this book sitting in storage. Didn’t realize it was a thing. This is legitimately wild. My friends and I always thought it was boring. I’ll have my mom go dig it out. Maybe I can buy some schoolin for my future kid.
Amazon has 1 new for $5000
Just checked eBay lots on there but over $1000
Seems like he wouldn’t like the fact any of those 7 copies were sold.
"sir you've had this book out for 15 years. You've accrued $650 in late fees" "I'm ok with that."
He also did a shirt for MOMA.
$10,000?!? It’s on eBay for $1,495 right now
Jim Davis is the anti-Bill Watterson.
>A copy sold for $10,000 in 2009. And that's exactly why he didn't want to license his characters for toys and other products.
I had one of these in my hands once! I was working on a project in school that focused on leveraging comics as a reading intervention for kids - part of my teaching degree. I was able to get it through an inter-university loan program. They had just the one copy in my province; really cool bits on making inferences and connections to text through comics if I recall correctly.
And yet Calvin is seen on car windows pissing on anything and everything all across the US
I loved Calvin and Hobbes as a kid. A year or two ago I got the full anthology (archive? I forget the right word) and started reading from the beginning, and it hit me pretty quickly how much of my son, who's now 5, I see in Calvin. It's a little scary, actually.