Week 3, Calvin and Hobbes and Bill Watterson - 2 pts

Bill Watterson and His Legacy

 A comic strip is a story it can be a short story but it's one all the same. If we jump into the pages you'll find they can alter your emotions. Comics can make you happy, sad or angry. They can be a form of entertainment that relieves stress. They can impact you and bring you into a completely different world. Bill Watterson excelled at this when he wrote Calvin and Hobbes. Through comics he could entrance his audience, and make them laugh by shedding light into what could be anyone’s next door neighbor’s child. Bill Watterson draws readers into the world of aliens, dinosaurs, and abominable snowmen that's all wrapped around a little 6 year old boy and his stuffed tiger Hobbes. He published from November 18th, 1985 to 1995. In this decade alone, he left a humongous imprint on readers around the globe. Bill Watterson is worth being studied by illustration students as he has affected his era and the artistic world, not only with his creation of Calvin and Hobbes but with his viewpoints on licensing and the cheapening of comics in the newspaper. 

Watterson found the attention of the press, fans, and journalists to be a nuisance. His ultimate goal at the time was to be a comic book artist. Not a celebrity, not a millionaire, not a world renown artist, just a simple comic book artist. It was clear that Watterson had very strong feelings about the merchandising and the commerce side of comics. He participated in the newspaper but he did with specific ideas about merchandising and the way that it changed the characters, the art, and the vision. Many characters go from being within pictures to being stuffed animals and on t-shirts and mugs and pretty much anything. We go from seeing comic book characters that you see in the newspaper as a figure that can make you laugh to something you can purchase anywhere as it turns into thousands of products. In today's day in age, not only comic book characters but cartoons or  animated figures that we look up to and that make us laugh lose their value and meaning when created into thousands of different products. This is what Watterson was wanting to prevent when he refused to license Calvin and Hobbes through merchandising. It was difficult because there was a huge revenue and countless children would have loved to have had their own Hobbes stuffed animal. However if this were to happen, we could ponder. People could ask the question “is Hobbes real?” They’d then look around and see a stuffed animal tiger and say no he's not real. But because the stuffed animals were not created, all we have of Calvin and Hobbes is the comics. And when we read through the comics, even now a days they hold much more value and meaning than they ever would have if Bill Watterson would have allowed for his work to be merchandised. “In a society that is as Media obsessed, and money obsessed as ours is and was then, his decision seems strange if not almost un American. He walked away from literally tens of millions of dollars in merchandising, because everything that Snoopy was on I'm sure he was offered for Hobbes.” States Charles Solomon, a critic and historian or animation and comics. Bill Watterson not only refused allowing for the use of his work to be merchandised but also for advertising. There was an analogy that makes a lot of sense to why Watterson did this. It's like a friend who gets really close to you and you go and decide to do something together and while you're hanging out the friend turns to you and says “I sell life insurance.”  This is kind of like a backstab. You feel as though the friend only got close to you so that they could sell you life insurance. That's how Watterson felt if Calvin and Hobbes were to be used to advertise things that were not related to the comic. It would have lessened the characters. It was extremely important that Calvin and Hobbes stayed in its original format as a comic and did not leave that form so that many people look up to Calvin and Hobbes and value and treasure them for years to come. Bill Watterson is a phenomenal artist because he not only wrote spectacular comic that many people look up to, but he refused to allow the licensing and merchandising of it that would have corrupted the purity and sincerity of Calvin and Hobbes that so many people still adore today. 

If Calvin and Hobbes would have first published today it would have done well but would not have had the same impact as it did during the time an area that it did in the late eighties. It did so well because there was more space in the newspaper and more people were reading the comics back then as compared to today's day and age where we are going to the Internet to read web comics, or YouTube, or Netflix to find entertainment. 

You'd assume after Watterson refusing the licensing of this trip that it would have disappeared soon after he stop publishing. However it's had the opposite effect. He's left a long-term Legacy, Children today till read Calvin and Hobbes. I discovered the comics in my school library when I was 7 years old and dearly fell in love with them. As do many other children. Teachers, parents, and grandparents alike pass down the treasured books.  It’s Universal  And has maintained its integrity throughout the years. Kids today still read and love them dearly despite them being written twenty years ago. It's neat to see how Calvin and Hobbes it's just that good that I could survive on its own here and its Essence is a comic not relying on merchandising or license to continue on and to impact  so many people's lives, twenty-two years later. It's transcendent. This comic will be around for many years to come as it speaks to us on a much deeper level. Bill Watterson created life with ink, brushes, watercolors and pencils turning Calvin and Hobbes into living breathing thing. Many cartoonist artist aspire to do with Bill Watterson was able to capture and achieve. The comic is in context even today it's all about a boy and his crazy imagination.