Calvin and Hobbes and the price of integrity • Hacker News Board

Re: Calvin and Hobbes and the price of integrity

#131

Post by fragmede » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 1:38 AM UTC

cogman10 wrote: post #124

PaulHoule wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that Davis quit drawing the strip pretty early on and has other people drawing it ever since. Something I think a lot of people don't realize is that Japan has a much healthier media ecosystem in many respects. Like we just don't get new comic strips here and haven't in decades whereas in Japan they get new 4-koma like Bocci the Rock and The Demon Girl Next Door all the time and these get anime an…

Japan will certainly drive a property into the ground (Dragonball, Naruto) though at least they keep coming up with new/inventive stories to go along with it. I'd also say Japanese media isn't without it's tropes that it repeats ad nauseam if they are successful once. But comparatively the US and most of the rest of the world is in a media dark age. The US seems to only manage to invent a new good property every deca…

Hilariously, Dragonball is a rehashing of a far older folktale.

Re: Calvin and Hobbes and the price of integrity

#132

Post by PaulHoule » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 1:47 AM UTC

cogman10 wrote: post #124

PaulHoule wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that Davis quit drawing the strip pretty early on and has other people drawing it ever since. Something I think a lot of people don't realize is that Japan has a much healthier media ecosystem in many respects. Like we just don't get new comic strips here and haven't in decades whereas in Japan they get new 4-koma like Bocci the Rock and The Demon Girl Next Door all the time and these get anime an…

Japan will certainly drive a property into the ground (Dragonball, Naruto) though at least they keep coming up with new/inventive stories to go along with it. I'd also say Japanese media isn't without it's tropes that it repeats ad nauseam if they are successful once. But comparatively the US and most of the rest of the world is in a media dark age. The US seems to only manage to invent a new good property every deca…

I hardly ever watch those anime which go on forever like Bleach.

When I go out as

https://mastodon.social/@UP8/116484198935085911

I find 20% or so people in the general population in my town recognize who I am right away because they watched either Naruto or Demon Slayer and those are both in my queue so I can understand better what they know about me.

... but it is hard because there is Slayers and Futari Wa Precure and many many anime that have a few 12 epsiode seasons in my queue. And a lot of that is in the "so bad it's good category". One of my guilty pleasures is

https://w1.backstabbedinabackwaterdungeon.xyz/chapters/1/

which gets really good over time because the crazy overpowered protagonist and his Level 9999 friends almost meet their match and I never would have discovered the light novel and manga if I hadn't been willing to watch a truly atrocious J.C. Staff anime. Only in Japan can some ordinary person write a web novel, get a contract for a light novel, get a manga made, then get an anime, video games, etc. The "media mix" strategy lets their industry market test content with low risk and the anime doesn't even have to be profitable on its own if it convinces 10,000 or so obsessive fans to shell out $150 to buy all the books of the light novel and another $150 to buy the books of the manga.

The cost structure of the US media industry is a lot worse and divides between super-expensive prestige content and a tier of slop. It's all a gatekeeping-industrial complex and no wonder people are pissed about DEI, "woke" and all that because it's a zero sum game. The industry would love to get another J. K. Rowlings and we've probably had 10 of them who never got greenlit because of low risk tolerance.

Re: Calvin and Hobbes and the price of integrity

#133

Post by jfengel » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 1:52 AM UTC

jeronimobomfim wrote: post #77

I once posted Bill Watterson's speech to the 1990 graduating class of his alma mater, but it never got to the front pages. I think I tried posting it again, no go. I just made this account so I can try it a third time. More than any comment I could write to some HN post, I wished people would click on the link and read it. Here's hoping some of you will do it, before it's wiped out from the net: https://web.mit.edu/j…

I take advice from rich people with a grain of salt. It's easier to praise the value of money over integrity when you have both. They don't ask starving artists to give graduation speeches.

Watterson appears to have genuine integrity and I applaud him. There is a point where you have enough money, and the ones who deserve the most scorn are those who cheat to get even more when they have orders of magnitude more than that. But don't forget that a lot of people really do have to choose between integrity and dinner, and I don't judge their decision.

Re: Calvin and Hobbes and the price of integrity

#134

Post by cogman10 » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 1:57 AM UTC

PaulHoule wrote: post #132

cogman10 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japan will certainly drive a property into the ground (Dragonball, Naruto) though at least they keep coming up with new/inventive stories to go along with it. I'd also say Japanese media isn't without it's tropes that it repeats ad nauseam if they are successful once. But comparatively the US and most of the rest of the world is in a media dark age. The US seems to only manage to invent a new good property every deca…

I hardly ever watch those anime which go on forever like Bleach . When I go out as https://mastodon.social/@UP8/116484198935085911 I find 20% or so people in the general population in my town recognize who I am right away because they watched either Naruto or Demon Slayer and those are both in my queue so I can understand better what they know about me. ... but it is hard because there is Slayers and Futari Wa Precur…

> crazy overpowered protagonist and his Level 9999 friends almost meet their match

Is this the origin of that trope? I've seen a couple of anime/manga that use the same story as a jump off point. Character that doesn't know their own strength kicked out of the party for being "weak" only for us to later find out they are one of the strongest/most powerful individuals in the world.

Re: Calvin and Hobbes and the price of integrity

#135

Post by randallsquared » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 1:59 AM UTC

toss1 wrote: post #29

randallsquared wrote: post #14

> It looked like the syndicate’s warnings to Watterson were well-founded: Calvin and Hobbes was threatened with widespread cancellation. Oh, that sounds bad. > It says something about the popularity of Calvin and Hobbes — not to mention Watterson’s pulling power as a cartoonist — that after all the outrage and arguments, only fifteen of the 1,800 papers running Watterson’s strip threatened to remove it from their pag…

>>This directly contradicts the first statement, does it not? It does not. The former was threats in the before times, the latter was the lackluster result after the dust had settled.

The contrast between "Calvin and Hobbes was threatened with widespread cancellation." and "only fifteen of the 1,800 papers running Watterson’s strip threatened" is quite stark.

Re: Calvin and Hobbes and the price of integrity

#136

Post by dTal » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 2:03 AM UTC

blindriver wrote: post #74

tombert wrote: post #50

I think about Bill Waterson a lot. I certainly don't blame Jim Davis for "selling out". He made a marketable character, and I don't blame him for trying to make his money because of it. I don't have a ton of artistic talent but if I created a lovable comic character and someone offered me a dumptruck full of money to sell toys and t-shirts and cartoons, I'm pretty sure I would take it, and I might even take it even i…

If I were a trillionaire like Elon Musk, Bill Watterson would be one of those people I would anonymous gift enough money so that the rest of their lives would be comfortable. We need more people like him, and he should be rewarded for it.

Ah, I think it's safe to say you wouldn't. Nothing against you, but the personality required to acquire a trillion (!!!) dollars is incompatible with the kind of philanthropic thinking you clearly possess.

Re: Calvin and Hobbes and the price of integrity

#137

Post by pseudalopex » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 2:05 AM UTC

jameskilton wrote: post #4

aBioGuy wrote: post #3

Another anecdote (where it came from I do not remember) stuck in my brain was that Watterson's editor called him one day to tell him that STEVEN SPIELBERG was on the phone to talk with him about a Calvin and Hobbes movie. Watterson refused to take the call.

Or how he was mailed a box of Calvin and Hobbes plushies to try to get sign-off on the quality of the toys. He mailed back a picture of the box on fire. IMO Calvin and Hobbes will always be special because of Watterson's integrity. It says everything it needed to say, and those comics will almost always be relevant.

Watterson said It was only my head that burst into flames.[1]

[1] https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/53216/mental-floss-exclu...

Re: Calvin and Hobbes and the price of integrity

#138

Post by PaulHoule » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 2:07 AM UTC

cogman10 wrote: post #134

PaulHoule wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hardly ever watch those anime which go on forever like Bleach . When I go out as https://mastodon.social/@UP8/116484198935085911 I find 20% or so people in the general population in my town recognize who I am right away because they watched either Naruto or Demon Slayer and those are both in my queue so I can understand better what they know about me. ... but it is hard because there is Slayers and Futari Wa Precur…

> crazy overpowered protagonist and his Level 9999 friends almost meet their match Is this the origin of that trope? I've seen a couple of anime/manga that use the same story as a jump off point. Character that doesn't know their own strength kicked out of the party for being "weak" only for us to later find out they are one of the strongest/most powerful individuals in the world.

Nah, that one is too new. Turns out this guy's power is only useful at the very bottom of the most dangerous dungeon which has dense enough mana that he can summon people and items stronger than the surface world. It's marketed as a crazy revenge fantasy and it is that, but it would be unfair it to compare it to the really mean-spirited revenge stories that come out of Korean and China.

Re: Calvin and Hobbes and the price of integrity

#139

Post by ericd » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 2:08 AM UTC

wrs wrote: post #117

ericd wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, our boys read my old C&H collection more than almost any of their modern kids books. Downside, it's inspired all sorts of mischievous ideas. Roald Dahl, too, and the Uncle series. These old books have more of an edge to them that our kids seem to light up at, and I've had a hard time finding modern equivalents. Most of the modern kids books seem too saccharine/sterile by comparison. Maybe it's just survivorship…

Yeah. Ronald Dahl once said something to the effect that to make a good children’s book the first thing you have to do is kill off the parents!

Sometimes by having a rhinoceros suddenly and unceremoniously gobble them up.

Re: Calvin and Hobbes and the price of integrity

#140

Post by dhosek » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 2:14 AM UTC

I model my parenting style on Calvin’s dad. I actually had almost the identical conversation with my kids about why old pictures are in black and white. When they were in fourth grade my daughter came home from school angry at me about having let her and her brother believe for four years that the world used to be in black and white.

They haven’t brought up bridges and weight limits yet so I can only assume they still believe that.