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- Hacker News
- I can safely say the three biggest influences in my teens were Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, The Muppet Show, and Calvin and Hobbes. Sagan ignited my passion for learning and made me realise I a rare ability to understand complicated things visually.
The Muppets taught me that nothing in life should be beyond ridicule, and that I should be the first one to laugh at myself, and to never be afraid to do stupid things. Also that a touch of surrealism is key to a healthy life.
Calvin gave me a sense of belonging, and made me realise I was not as weird as I originally thought. If people enough like it to the point newspapers publish the strips, I would not be alone. The final strip really hit me hard. I miss those two.
by rbanffy - Some interesting discussion here about Bill Watterson and Jim Davis and it makes me wonder about this word, "integrity," that's being used. In my mind, integrity is to be honest and to do what you promise to do (unless we are talking about physical structures, which we aren't here, are we?). When an artist "sells out" is that really showing a lack of integrity? I guess it depends on what promises they made to... themselves? To others? What if things have changed since they made those promises? We aren't talking about moral absolutes like "thou shall not kill," here (if even that is an absolute). I feel like "integrity" is possibly the wrong word to use for all this, but as someone who grew up very religious and who strives to maintain his own integrity, I can see why people might use the word here. I think my concern is for when other artists who make different decisions than Bill Watterson are ridiculed for not having integrity, as if they have broken some moral code. They haven't.by krupan
- The last Calvin and Hobbes strip [1].
1: https://www.reddit.com/r/calvinandhobbes/comments/6pig9h/hon...
by apparent - This is really well written, which is refreshing with all the AI.
Past:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32116184 Bill Watterson’s refusal to license Calvin and Hobbes (2016) 464 points July 16, 2022 311 comments
More on Calvin and Hobbes: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
by Cider9986 - I model my parenting style on Calvin’s dad. I actually had almost the identical conversation with my kids about why old pictures are in black and white. When they were in fourth grade my daughter came home from school angry at me about having let her and her brother believe for four years that the world used to be in black and white.
They haven’t brought up bridges and weight limits yet so I can only assume they still believe that.
by dhosek - I once posted Bill Watterson's speech to the 1990 graduating class of his alma mater, but it never got to the front pages. I think I tried posting it again, no go. I just made this account so I can try it a third time. More than any comment I could write to some HN post, I wished people would click on the link and read it. Here's hoping some of you will do it, before it's wiped out from the net:
- What a brilliantly written piece. Maintaining one's integrity is unfortunately rare enough that it makes Watterson's story so remarkable. I completely respect and admire his dedication to doing something for its own sake, for holding himself to the highest standards imaginable, and from walking away from it all for his own reasons - even if selfishly I'd rather him keep writing so that there would be more to enjoy. Time to go pull some old volumes of Calvin & Hobbes off the shelf for the hundredth time, I suppose.by dgritsko
- I think about Bill Waterson a lot.
I certainly don't blame Jim Davis for "selling out". He made a marketable character, and I don't blame him for trying to make his money because of it. I don't have a ton of artistic talent but if I created a lovable comic character and someone offered me a dumptruck full of money to sell toys and t-shirts and cartoons, I'm pretty sure I would take it, and I might even take it even if I felt like it diminished my vision of the comic. I would like to think I have integrity, and I think I do to some extent (there are certain types of companies I will not work for e.g. casinos), but Waterson is on another level.
And I have to say, it has made Calvin and Hobbes age a lot better for me. Garfield is almost more of a "brand" than a comic at this point, and it has made it such that I find the character and even the comics kind of (for want of a better word) "cheap" or "tacky". The same can be said for Dilbert (Scott Adams himself not withstanding...I used to genuinely like the comics).
C&H, on the other hand, reads about as well now as it did when I was a kid. The jokes still work, the art is appealing, and since there hasn't been this mass-marketing push for it, it has retained a purity unlike anything else.
I don't have the integrity or will power that Bill Waterson has, and I probably never will, but it can be something I strive to have some day.
by tombert