I like Calvin and Hobbes, but Bill Watterson is an idiot.
I once decided to read a collection of Calvin and Hobbes, one of the omnibuses, and the beginning had an author's introduction. I read those because it's polite, you know, and besides, they're usually short. A quick, "so this is my strip, and here's how I got the idea, and now for a self deprecating comment about how the art used to suck even worse, and thanks for reading, okay, bye!" and you're done. A page and a half, at most.
So, I was about five pages in when I realized Bill Watterson was writing an essay on artistic integrity. Because that's what I want to read when I open up a comic strip collection.
Anyway, he was going off on other strips for "selling out to the man" or whatever, and producing merchandise, because that is apparently evil, because artistic integrity. Okay, let's think about this for a second. You know Garfield? Fat cat, likes lasagna, sleeping and kicking dogs? Dislikes Mondays, dogs (duh) and Internet parodies of himself? So, anyway, that cat is a whore, totally, because, I mean, seriously, what hasn't been merchandised using Garfield? The friggin' Cub Scouts once used him in a promotion, which makes no Goddamned sense whatsoever, but okay.
Perhaps you remember those suction cup Garfields you would sometimes see on the back window of vehicles. They were kinda cute, I guess. You used to see them a lot, now, hardly ever. So, that's Garfield merchandise; kinda cute, mostly forgotten.
You ever seen Calvin on the back window of a vehicle?
Moral of the story; if you're a popular artist with artistic integrity, sell out to corporate America ASAP, because fuck your fans before they fuck you.
I like Calvin and Hobbes, but Bill Watterson is an idiot.
I once decided to read a collection of Calvin and Hobbes, one of the omnibuses, and the beginning had an author's introduction. I read those because it's polite, you know, and besides, they're usually short. A quick, "so this is my strip, and here's how I got the idea, and now for a self deprecating comment about how the art used to suck even worse, and thanks for reading, okay, bye!" and you're done. A page and a half, at most.
So, I was about five pages in when I realized Bill Watterson was writing an essay on artistic integrity. Because that's what I want to read when I open up a comic strip collection.
Anyway, he was going off on other strips for "selling out to the man" or whatever, and producing merchandise, because that is apparently evil, because artistic integrity. Okay, let's think about this for a second. You know Garfield? Fat cat, likes lasagna, sleeping and kicking dogs? Dislikes Mondays, dogs (duh) and Internet parodies of himself? So, anyway, that cat is a whore, totally, because, I mean, seriously, what hasn't been merchandised using Garfield? The friggin' Cub Scouts once used him in a promotion, which makes no Goddamned sense whatsoever, but okay.
Perhaps you remember those suction cup Garfields you would sometimes see on the back window of vehicles. They were kinda cute, I guess. You used to see them a lot, now, hardly ever. So, that's Garfield merchandise; kinda cute, mostly forgotten.
You ever seen Calvin on the back window of a vehicle?
Moral of the story; if you're a popular artist with artistic integrity, sell out to corporate America ASAP, because fuck your fans before they fuck you.