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Calvin and Hobbes and the price of integrity

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Re: Calvin and Hobbes and the price of integrity

#181

Post by ShadowOfThePit »

WillAdams wrote: post #70
Tyr42 wrote: post #11

Man, I always wonder what would have happened if Bill Watterson had been around for the era of webcomics. Much more creative freedom, and no editor or syndicate to tell you how to layout your panels. Would he have loved it? Or would he have hated it? He certainly wouldn't have wanted to build a website for it.

I think he would have enjoyed the creative freedom, run with it, and maybe even have managed to make some interesting new expression, say something along the lines of: https://xkcd.com/1190/ (which won a well-deserved Hugo if memory serves) I've been on something of a webcomic kick for a while now, and while I'd love to shill for _Girl Genius_ https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20021104 (oops, guess I ju…

I don't get the first one.

Re: Calvin and Hobbes and the price of integrity

#182

Post by zavec »

jjulius wrote: post #78
echelon wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was this the right choice, though? Interest in Calvin & Hobbes has fallen off a cliff. I don't see any references to it in public anymore, and it used to be everywhere. Kids today probably don't even know about it.

My wife and I take turns each night doing bedtime for our two girls, 4/6. I have the full C&H box set and, a whiiiiile back, my oldest asked what it was and if we could read it. For over a year now, any time it's my time to do bedtime, we have to read C&H and cannot read anything else. We've been cruising through it from start to finish and are, within the next week or so, going to reach the end. Both kiddos, especia…

Hmm, where have I seen a story before where a kid wants their parents to read the same book over and over. I can't quite put my finger on it...

Re: Calvin and Hobbes and the price of integrity

#183

Post by shantnutiwari »

I dont know. I would have loved to buy a calvin t shirt or a hobbes toy for my son.

All this means is: Calvin and Hobbes will die out, as hardly anyone in the new generation (kids born in 2000s) know about this comic.

I can understand the art vs commercialism debate, but this is going too far in the other direction.

And before people start lecturing me: Yes I know some corproations are evil. Tintin's new owners didnt allow the original country Belgium to host a Tintin event because they wanted more money.

Corporate greed can totally kill art; but this is the other extreme, and will also lead to a slow death by people just forgetting about it

Re: Calvin and Hobbes and the price of integrity

#184

Post by pseudohadamard »

vintermann wrote: post #164
cogman10 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Garfield was always about marketing. Davis was in it to sell merchandise. It was practically designed in a lab to be the ideal comic strip for moving product. And as such, Garfield has never had any sort of message or meaning. It's just a cartoon that kids and some adults like. Waterson, on the other hand, very obviously enjoyed his work and pushing boundaries. C&H was chock full of his personal beliefs, messages, an…

That's what Jim Davis tells everyone. He always cheerfully said he decided to become a cartoonist in order to make money. When asked about anything related to Garfield, he basically always denies having any artistic ambitions. That surprisingly dark comic which suggested Garfield's entire life with Jon was just the hallucinations of him slowly starving to death alone, for instance? Oh, he saw a market survey suggesti…

> That surprisingly dark comic which suggested Garfield

If you think that's dark you should see all the Zalgo Garfield comics Davis did...

Re: Calvin and Hobbes and the price of integrity

#185

Post by dust-jacket »

xandrius wrote: post #177
wodenokoto wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it was on the front page here a few weeks ago about the creation of garfield. Apparently Davis had been struggling with a previous comic strip and when an editor told him that his characters just weren't what people wanted to see, he rethought his entire strategy and decided to emulate the success of Snoopi: - Cute character, but instead of going for dog lovers, there was a hole in the market for cat lovers -…

You respect someone who plans to be a sell-out more than someone who sells out later for whatever other reason?

Not the commenter, but yeah, I think I do.

Setting out to do something commercial (and succeeding), is different from setting out to do something firmly non-commercial and then commercialising it. The second one will almost always involve compromise that was never intended, which often undermines the original, non-commercial version.

Re: Calvin and Hobbes and the price of integrity

#186

Post by grdjjhgggg »

xandrius wrote: post #177
wodenokoto wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it was on the front page here a few weeks ago about the creation of garfield. Apparently Davis had been struggling with a previous comic strip and when an editor told him that his characters just weren't what people wanted to see, he rethought his entire strategy and decided to emulate the success of Snoopi: - Cute character, but instead of going for dog lovers, there was a hole in the market for cat lovers -…

You respect someone who plans to be a sell-out more than someone who sells out later for whatever other reason?

I think building a business is hard, and people that succeed at it (in a generally non-harmful way) are impressive. Setting out to build a business and succeeding, as opposed to stumbling into it unawares, is indeed more impressive to me, I think.

Re: Calvin and Hobbes and the price of integrity

#187

Post by Kotlopou »

ShadowOfThePit wrote: post #181
WillAdams wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he would have enjoyed the creative freedom, run with it, and maybe even have managed to make some interesting new expression, say something along the lines of: https://xkcd.com/1190/ (which won a well-deserved Hugo if memory serves) I've been on something of a webcomic kick for a while now, and while I'd love to shill for _Girl Genius_ https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20021104 (oops, guess I ju…

I don't get the first one.

There's an explanation here: https://explainxkcd.com/1190

Originally, the frame at the xkcd link changed once per 30 minutes, now if you click the comic you can read it as an archive.

Re: Calvin and Hobbes and the price of integrity

#188

Post by RealityVoid »

xandrius wrote: post #177
wodenokoto wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it was on the front page here a few weeks ago about the creation of garfield. Apparently Davis had been struggling with a previous comic strip and when an editor told him that his characters just weren't what people wanted to see, he rethought his entire strategy and decided to emulate the success of Snoopi: - Cute character, but instead of going for dog lovers, there was a hole in the market for cat lovers -…

You respect someone who plans to be a sell-out more than someone who sells out later for whatever other reason?

Well, at least he sold something. Only halfway joking. Because probably worse than knowing you put slop out is putting thing out nobody likes.

Re: Calvin and Hobbes and the price of integrity

#189

Post by cindyllm »

PaulHoule wrote: post #138
cogman10 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

[dead]

Re: Calvin and Hobbes and the price of integrity

#190

Post by HelloNurse »

xandrius wrote: post #176
fragmede wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Rehashing and inspired by are different things. There are certain elements of Journey to the West found in DB but not even Goku is similar to Wukong. Yes, monkey-like features, extending stick, perhaps a couple of early characters but everything else is not even close. So I don't think it's fair to say that is a rehash.

Judging from the initial portion of the anime Dragonball pivoted gradually from a loose adaptation of Journey to the West (with Goku as the protagonist among funny versions of traditional characters) to a more original and specific setting and plot (with Goku as the most important of many Saiyan and martial artists).
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