Re:Startup - Bill Watterson, a cartoonist's advice
by Arjuna on Friday August 30, 2013 @05:00PM
(#6304174)
This is an excellent read entitled, The Cheapening of the Comics. It was a speech given in 1989 by Bill Watterson. In it, he discusses his thoughts on merchandising, the business aspects and details of licensing, etc.
The above speech provides a lot of insight as to why he answered the following interview question the way that he did [1]:
Q: What led you to resist merchandising Calvin and Hobbes?
A: For starters, I clearly miscalculated how popular it would be to show Calvin urinating on a Ford logo... Actually, I wasn't against all merchandising when I started the strip, but each product I considered seemed to violate the spirit of the strip, contradict its message, and take me away from the work I loved. If my syndicate had let it go at that, the decision would have taken maybe 30 seconds of my life.
http://web.archive.org/web/20060210115506/http://hobbes.ncsa...
The above speech provides a lot of insight as to why he answered the following interview question the way that he did [1]:
Q: What led you to resist merchandising Calvin and Hobbes?
A: For starters, I clearly miscalculated how popular it would be to show Calvin urinating on a Ford logo... Actually, I wasn't against all merchandising when I started the strip, but each product I considered seemed to violate the spirit of the strip, contradict its message, and take me away from the work I loved. If my syndicate had let it go at that, the decision would have taken maybe 30 seconds of my life.
[1] http://www.andrewsmcmeel.com/calvinandhobbes/index.html/pw_w...