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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

#211

Post by shagie »

vintermann wrote: post #202
lproven wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Zalgo Garfield Those were a fan parody, and were nothing to do with Jim Davis.

Jim Davis did however write the script for that story in "Garfield: his 9 lives" (1984) where Garfield suddenly goes feral and is implied to kill his elderly owner. So yeah, even imsorryjon-level Garfield isn't offensive to Davis at all It's clear to me that he never loved his characters or were so defensive over his art as Watterson was - at least not in Garfield. But he also seems to have respected that his audienc…

Available for borrowing at https://archive.org/details/garfieldhis9live00davi

7th life is dark. 5th life is a close second.

Re: Calvin and Hobbes and the price of integrity

#212

Post by krupan »

Some interesting discussion here about Bill Watterson and Jim Davis and it makes me wonder about this word, "integrity," that's being used. In my mind, integrity is to be honest and to do what you promise to do (unless we are talking about physical structures, which we aren't here, are we?). When an artist "sells out" is that really showing a lack of integrity? I guess it depends on what promises they made to... themselves? To others? What if things have changed since they made those promises? We aren't talking about moral absolutes like "thou shall not kill," here (if even that is an absolute). I feel like "integrity" is possibly the wrong word to use for all this, but as someone who grew up very religious and who strives to maintain his own integrity, I can see why people might use the word here. I think my concern is for when other artists who make different decisions than Bill Watterson are ridiculed for not having integrity, as if they have broken some moral code. They haven't.

Re: Calvin and Hobbes and the price of integrity

#213

Post by delis-thumbs-7e »

rapind wrote: post #16
hyperhello wrote: post #12

> I show two versions of reality, and each makes complete sense to the participant who sees it. I think that’s how life works. Not to spoil a beautiful joke by explaining it, but all of the strips are based on this. Two characters see things differently. Sometimes it’s because Calvin is in the grip of his (psychosis|childhood) and sometimes it’s a totally ex machina Watterson idea that they’re exploring, but there’s…

> The movie Fight Club has been correctly compared to Calvin and Hobbes. Bit of a tangent, but I recently watched Fight Club with my son. He was surprised he liked it because he'd gotten the impression it was a dog whistle for manosphere spazzes. I was like "exactly, Matrix is actually good too...".

I remember when Fight Club came out and joke was along the lines of ”you mean the gayest movie like, ever?!” Palahniuk, the author of the book (the film changes very little) came out himself only years later. And it is so very very very queer coded, back in the early 00’s even straight people noticed it. And Matrix trilogy is of course made by two transwomen.

I don’t really understood why manosphere thinks these films as some tough guy films or something. Then again, I think I do.

Re: Calvin and Hobbes and the price of integrity

#215

Post by testing22321 »

> Watterson has a recurring dream about his old college where he doesn’t know what class he’s taking or where he’s meant to be. He roams the grounds, growing more flustered with each confused step. Right before he wakes, he thinks, “How many more years until I graduate…? Wait, didn’t I graduate already? How old am I?”

I’m 44 and I have this dream every few months about high school and university. Something deep inside.

Re: Calvin and Hobbes and the price of integrity

#216

Post by naasking »

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?

Note that you're asking whether it's more impressive that someone managed to analyze and intentionally create an appealing, cross-cultural, and marketable product, rather than creating something appealing completely by accident. Of course the former is far more impressive than the latter, assuming it really was intention as laid out by the OP. It requires intelligence and understanding of the world.

Re: Calvin and Hobbes and the price of integrity

#217

Post by tombert »

badpun wrote: post #200
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…

> but if I created a lovable comic character and someone offered me a dumptruck full of money > would like to think I have integrity, and I think I do to some extent (there are certain types of companies I will not work for e.g. casinos) What if a casino offered you a dumptruck full of money?

If I were offered a dump truck full of money from a casino in order to help the casino optimize their gambling, then I think I would have enough restraint to say no.

I say this because I did turn down a very lucrative job opportunity at an online casino recently. It wasn’t as much money as Bill Waterson almost certainly turned down, but it would be a very significant bump in my salary.

Re: Calvin and Hobbes and the price of integrity

#218

Post by _the_inflator »

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…

I totally agree.

BW got thrown under the buss for taking a stance, his stance. He is a nonconformist and really, he puts in his comics a one of a kind mixture of childish silliness, questions, statements, and philosophical topics.

There is no politics other than being a nonconformist who gets bullied today now, which not even ironically proves his point as well reinforces it.

It is like he is simply protecting the purity of his characters, not the other way around. He appears to be a medium, not so much an artist.

He is a treasure, and a singularity. I ordered all of his comics back then and to this day hold them dearly and the books are treated with so much decency, they appear as never opened. I for example never fold the book cover, nothing. It is a weird thing of mine, but it is out of respect for an author with whom I have a conversation.

Re: Calvin and Hobbes and the price of integrity

#219

Post by steve_adams_86 »

vasco wrote: post #172
wrs wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the article points out, the reason for that particular lack of merchandise is even deeper. > Watterson insisted that if he wasn’t going to settle the question of Hobbes, then he definitely wouldn’t let some toy manufacturer settle it by turning Hobbes “into a stuffed toy for real, and deprive the strip of an element of its magic”.

Having a toy representation of the tiger doesn't mean anything about what the tiger is or represents. I'm with the downvoted OP, it's a holier than thou position and many people would've had even extra joy compared to just having the comic books. Plus, people make their own anyway.

Someone making their own is exactly how it should be. This is perfectly aligned with the spirit of the character. A factory churning out clones of Hobbes, and Watterson essentially making a statement that Hobbes is in fact just a toy would go against that spirit.

Some things really are better when you need to use your imagination.

Re: Calvin and Hobbes and the price of integrity

#220

Post by evanelias »

kbenson wrote: post #163
evanelias wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite the mediocrity of the Garfield comic strip, I think a lot of Garfield's enduring popularity among late Gen X / early Millennials can be attributed to the late 80s Garfield and Friends cartoon [1]. It was actually funny, largely due to the writing by Mark Evanier. He's also known for his snappy dialogue on Groo the Wanderer, among other comic books. And then in the late 00s, Garfield got an indie-cred boost fr…

Groo was always a favorite of mine as a child. The amazing art of Sergio Aragones and the sarcasm and double speak that pervade the comic always connected better with me. That came across in the Aragones panels in Mad much of the time as well.

Same! They actually still put out new issues, in the form of a new 4-issue mini series roughly once per year. It's the only comic book I regularly read as an adult. Pretty amazing that Sergio is still doing this at age 88!
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