- #Calvin and hobbes conveyance movie#
- #Calvin and hobbes conveyance license#
- #Calvin and hobbes conveyance tv#
Martin claims that he will not let the Westeros saga leave his family’s hands. The Conan Doyle estate levies substantial licensing fees against anyone who wants to make a Sherlock Holmes show, movie, or book.
#Calvin and hobbes conveyance movie#
Tolkien had personally licensed the movie rights to LOTR and The Hobbit, a decision his son and grandson regretted).
#Calvin and hobbes conveyance license#
The Tolkien estate famously hated The Lord of the Rings movies and refuses to license anymore of J.R.R.’s works (J.R.R. I’ve talked in the past about creators who exert immense control over their properties. He stuck to his guns in a stubborn, and frankly impressive, attempt to ensure the long term integrity of his creation.
In the twenty years since Calvin and Hobbes disappeared from newspapers, Watterson never signed on to this modern way of thinking. He once quipped that he should hire a copyright lawyer to prevent unauthorized reproductions, but he mostly expressed bemusement at them, joking in a recent interview that “long after the strip is forgotten, those decals are my ticket to immortality.”
Any image that you’ve ever seen of either Calvin or Hobbes that doesn’t come directly from one of his books - like those awful “Calvin peeing” and “Calvin praying” car decals - are unlicensed and illegal. He’s been reclusive, giving maybe a half dozen interview in the intervening years. One - possibly apocryphal - story has him setting ablaze a box of stuffed toy Hobbeses that a doll manufacturer had mailed him to convince him to change his mind. How could he not want to profit from Calvin and Hobbes? Even after all this time it’s still popular, and lord knows people have tried to get him to come around. Which is what makes Watterson’s position so fundamentally at odds with what we consider normal behavior.
#Calvin and hobbes conveyance tv#
Got your song featured on a prominent TV show? Had your artwork featured on a toy ad? Sold your graffiti mural to a major tech company to use in the lobby of its corporate headquarters? These all became good things because they raised awareness of your brand and they allowed you to financially capitalize on that name recognition. The idea of selling out lost its negative connotation. But then an interesting thing began happening in the late 90’s and early 00’s. Monetizing a thing immediately called into question its integrity, and more importantly, the integrity of the artist. In the old days, there was this idea of “selling out” and we as a culture decided that it was bad. Instead of asking what’s wrong with rampant commercialism, we ought to be asking, “What justifies it?” Once you’ve given up its integrity, that’s it. The world of a comic strip is much more fragile than most people realize. I’m convinced that licensing would sell out the soul of Calvin and Hobbes. I think to license Calvin and Hobbes would ruin the most precious qualities of my strip and, once that happens, you can’t buy those qualities back.īut the public loves the strip, so why not indulge them? I’m not interested in removing all the subtlety from my work to condense it for a product… I have no aversion to obscene wealth, but that’s not my motivation either. Note pads and coffee mugs just aren’t appropriate vehicles for what I’m trying to do here. It relies on conversation, and the development of personalities and relationships… To explore character, you need lots of time and space. Icensing is inconsistent with what I’m trying to do with Calvin and Hobbes … isn’t a gag strip… The humor is situational, and often episodic. When asked in an interview why licensing his characters was out of the question, Watterson said:
No movies, no cartoons (although he almost relented when approached by Pixar), no toys, no hats or t-shirts. And if Calvin and Hobbes had been created by anyone other than Bill Watterson, we probably wouldn’t have heard the last of it.īut Watterson famously refused to license his creation to anyone for any reason other than publishing. With something so clearly loved by its creator and so personal, I just couldn’t envision a world where there would be no more new ones. Watterson had the innate ability to put on the page something that spoke directly to the brash creative misfit lurking deep inside of me (or maybe not so deep if my mother is to be believed), like he was illustrating the comic for an audience of one. Calvin and Hobbes was a formative part of my youth - the sly brilliant writing and stark black and white illustrations providing color to my sense of childhood wonder and adventure. When Calvin and Hobbes went out of print twenty years ago, I think most people assumed it would eventually return. Maybe the best way to build a lasting and beloved brand is to not spend any time building one.
0 kommentar(er)
