Yes, I saw Calvin on the back window of vehicles lots of times, usually badly-drawn. As I recall, when Calvin and Hobbs was really popular about twenty-five years ago, there was a greater quantity than usual of usually-crappy unauthorized merchandise -- T-shirts and decals and stuff. I don't recall suction cup Calvins; they were probably too high-tech for amateur rip-offs. There was no Calvin and Hobbes animated TV program, which everyone expected. There were two reasons. Firstly, Watterson refused to license any authorized merchandise, leaving the market open for the amateur bootlegs. Secondly, because Watterson refused to merchandise Calvin and Hobbes, legally nobody cared. There were no authorized licensees to go after the bootleggers. Because Watterson's newspaper syndicate wasn't making any money from licensed T-shirts and decals, they weren't interested. If Watterson cared, nobody knew because he was such a private person that he never said anything, and he was too much a hermit to go after any bootleggers himself. The general public attitude was that, if Watterson was so high and mighty about his artistic integrity to throw away millions in potential merchandising for himself and his newspaper syndicate (which was rumored to be privately extremely pissed, but they officially supported Watterson's choice), that was his decision. So: who was fucking whom?
Yes, I saw Calvin on the back window of vehicles lots of times, usually badly-drawn. As I recall, when Calvin and Hobbs was really popular about twenty-five years ago, there was a greater quantity than usual of usually-crappy unauthorized merchandise -- T-shirts and decals and stuff. I don't recall suction cup Calvins; they were probably too high-tech for amateur rip-offs. There was no Calvin and Hobbes animated TV program, which everyone expected. There were two reasons. Firstly, Watterson refused to license any authorized merchandise, leaving the market open for the amateur bootlegs. Secondly, because Watterson refused to merchandise Calvin and Hobbes, legally nobody cared. There were no authorized licensees to go after the bootleggers. Because Watterson's newspaper syndicate wasn't making any money from licensed T-shirts and decals, they weren't interested. If Watterson cared, nobody knew because he was such a private person that he never said anything, and he was too much a hermit to go after any bootleggers himself. The general public attitude was that, if Watterson was so high and mighty about his artistic integrity to throw away millions in potential merchandising for himself and his newspaper syndicate (which was rumored to be privately extremely pissed, but they officially supported Watterson's choice), that was his decision. So: who was fucking whom?
Fred Patten