Via Paul Constant, Mental Floss magazine has an online excerpt of an interview with the creator of Calvin & Hobbes:
Years ago, you hadn’t quite dismissed the notion of animating the strip. Are you a fan of Pixar? Does their competency ever make the idea of animating your creations more palatable?
The visual sophistication of Pixar blows me away, but I have zero interest in animating Calvin and Hobbes. If you’ve ever compared a film to a novel it’s based on, you know the novel gets bludgeoned. It’s inevitable, because different media have different strengths and needs, and when you make a movie, the movie’s needs get served. As a comic strip, Calvin and Hobbes works exactly the way I intended it to. There’s no upside for me in adapting it.
Not to diss Pixar, but: Whew!
Your fight over protecting Calvin and Hobbes from licensing deals, and your battle to increase the real estate for your Sunday page comic, were notable—partially because they indicated your incredible autonomy over your work. Had you “lost” those battles, it appears you would have ended the strip. It reminds me of Howard Roark and his desire to blow up his building rather than see it molested by other hands. Was there a critical moment in your career that instilled such unwavering creative integrity?
Just to be clear, I did not have incredible autonomy until afterward. I had signed most of my rights away in order to get syndicated, so I had no control over what happened to my own work, and I had no legal position to argue anything. I could not take the strip with me if I quit, or even prevent the syndicate from replacing me, so I was truly scared I was going to lose everything I cared about either way. I made a lot of impassioned arguments for why a work of art should reflect the ideas and beliefs of its creator, but the simple fact was that my contract made that issue irrelevant. It was a grim, sad time. Desperation makes a person do crazy things.
More good stuff at the link. It’s really impressive how Watterson gently points out that the interview has the ‘Howard Roark’ Randroid fantasy backwards: Being willing to destroy one’s own work is not a mark of ‘unwavering creative integrity’, but a sign of suicidal desperation from someone at the wrong end of the power relationship.
***********
What’s on the agenda for the start of another week?
Glocksman
True.
Also, a smart publisher/editor/whatever *should* take into account that it’s the artist’s creativity that made the work popular in the first place, and try to accommodate them whenever practically possible in order to preserve that popularity.
Though there are more than a few popular authors (Harry Turtledove, W.E.B. Griffin) that could use tighter editing in some of their works.
NotMax
Success breeds latitude.
Once the strip achieved and sustained market penetration sufficient to guarantee long-term profits, the syndicate of course was amenable to demands.
Heck, like a rock diva, Mr. Watterson could have demanded a fresh bowl of only red M&Ms daily in his studio, but carefully chose to seek concessions guaranteed to fulfill his vision of integrity and keep him satisfied enough to continue.
That’s not simply wise (as opposed to merely smart), that’s shrewd.
WereBear
This is why artists are rejecting the monolithic entities in music and book publishing; it was a tremendously skewed arrangement, and the only way to do well was to be so fabulously popular your tiny slice amounted to something.
dan
It reminds me of Superman in that episode …
HeartlandLiberal
Sitting here at my PCs in my main study, I can turn my head left, and just over my shoulder, laminated at framed at eye level, is the last Calvin and Hobbes Sunday strip.
“It’s a magical world, Hobbes, ol’ buddy… Let’s go Exploring!”
One of the greatest comic strips ever, and I have read comics and collected them all my life. The only greater newspaper comic I can think of would be Pogo, by Walt Kelly. Sad to know that there are now whole generations of young people who, when someone mentions Pogo to them, respond with a “Who”?
Napoleon
Did my post get stuck in moderation?
Napoleon
So twice I have written longer post to this thead which must have ended up in moderation or something.
jibeaux
I wish he’d commented on why he went with Mental Floss… I love that magazine and have a subscription, every time it comes it’s just like a little journey into the whimsical and interesting. I have a feeling others have tried to interview him before.
If you have kids, you have to introduce them to the Calvin & Hobbes books. The strips are so timeless, mine just love them.
debbie
Usually, but not always. I thought the film version of “The Road” was every bit as good as the book. In fact, I thought each version demonstrated the strengths of the specific medium. It can be done, but it takes care, and that costs (horrors!) time and money.
Gromit
Pixar is a strange hypothetical to adapt Calvin and Hobbes. Correct me if I’m wrong, but in 18 years of features, they’ve never done an adaptation, so I’m not sure why they’d start now (I’m not as sure about their shorts). Also, a C&H movie would have to be 2D, if such a thing were to ever happen.
MomSense
My youngest is now reading Calvin and Hobbes. His brother gave him the set of books that has been passed around by all of us. The best thing is hearing him giggle as he reads them.
Napoleon
@jibeaux:
Wild guess, but Watterson lives in the eastern suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio where his parents are from (and still alive). I read at one time that some people from the eastern exburbs of Cleveland had some kind of ownership/management connection to it and according to the Wiki page for Mental Floss they have an office there. Perhaps a personal connection?
Botsplainer
OT, but I ran across this map this morning and find it incredibly instructive as regards issues of race and conservative assholery. It’s a breakdown of the last slave census from 1860, showing the relative percentages of enslaved populations.
http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2010/12/11/map-of-the-last-u-s-slave-census-1860/
The parts that really stick out for me are the extent to which slaves comprised the populations. South Carolina and Mississippi were majority slave, and in some places made over 80% of the population. In the other states of the Confederacy of Dunces, slave populations ran from 30-45% of the population as a whole. Due to that whole 3/5 nonsense, slaver planters wound up with an outsized voice in their Congressional delegations, controlled their state legislatures and local governments through their local district population apportionment and used that local political control to crush any dissent from their tiny class of middle-class whites (lawyers, doctors pastors, newspaper editors). We see the echoes of the control and propaganda over poor and middle class Southern whites even now, nearly 150 years after the conflict ended, plus, it infects newcomers to the region.
Burning out Naziism and Bushido wasn’t nearly as difficult an effort.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Meh,
Newspaper comics are commercial art and the client has a right have a say in the finished product since they are paying. Just like any other employe-employer relationship in the world. If Watterson wants to be true to his muse and not deal with left brained clods, do what I did and get a day job and do his art on his off time.
cmorenc
@HeartlandLiberal:
Friday the thirteenth falls on a Tuesday this month…
Schlemizel
Am I just late to the party (I was on vacation last week & totally disconnected) but what was the deal with the House stenographer going all Jesus-y last week in the middle of a vote?
Geoduck
@NotMax:
Getting off-topic, but there was a quite valid reason why the group Van Halen included the now-infamous bit with the M&Ms in their contract: if the set-up crew got that right, it meant they were more likely to have gotten all the important-but-fiddly technical stuff right as well.
Botsplainer
@Schlemizel:
She’s a God-bothering Pentecostal nutbucket who was hired in 2005, and her Facebook is larded over with love for White ‘Murkan Jesus. Her husband is proud of her and undoubtedly her pastor is as well.
RSA
I’d have liked to hear Watterson say, “Howard who? He sounds like a nutjob.”
Jamey
@Botsplainer: Dunno why, but I expected the number, 27% to pop up in that study.
danielx
Harry Reid on Ted Cruz…
Harry, ol’ buddy, that’s probably true. Where your analysis is in error is in your presupposition that Ted Cruz has any interest in legislating anything. My man Ted doesn’t give a fuck about legislation.
Bless his heart.
Walker
@WereBear:
Book publishing is very different than either of these (particularly the ridiculous loan sharks that are the music industry). Money flows to the author and they keep all rights.
While some people have done well in self publishing, the jury is still very out on how much better it is. The standard flight to quality that is hitting the e-book industry is just making this murkier.
Bobby Thomson
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: A retort.
Elizabelle
@Botsplainer:
Excellent link re the 1860 slave census, and its followbacks. Thank you.
rikyrah
loved loved loved Calvin and Hobbes
Paul W.
I just wanted to say that I credit Calvin and Hobbes (and Watterson) with heavily influencing my own cynical yet optimistic view of the world. It let me know that it was OK to bring irrational exuberance to everyday things and really just enjoy life as it comes.
It also made me laugh and spend hours just poring over the artwork, I bought the collector’s edition as soon as I heard there was such a thing. Best investment I ever made.
dexwood
My son was a huge fan. About ’95 or ’96, when he was 10, he owned all the books. My wife was a museum curator in Santa Fe at the time and one of the docents lived next door to Watterson who owned a house in Santa Fe.He was, apparently, notorious for not doing book signings, for being reluctant to autograph things.When the docent heard how much my son loved C & H, she asked Watterson if he would sign my son’s books and he very graciously agreed to do so with nice inscriptions added. Still among my son’s prized possessions to this day..
Paul W.
@dexwood: I’m the same age as your son, and I probably read every single Sunday comic as it came out and bought every collection as well. He’s lucky to have that signature, and I’m glad Watterson always shows such respect to his fans.
dexwood
@Paul W.:
The books are battered and bruised, well worn, with little re-sale value, but worth so much to my son.
Chris
@Botsplainer:
Well, it helps that we didn’t spend a century coddling Nazi and Bushido nostalgists with “Lost Cause” dreck.
Napoleon
@dexwood:
As I mention above is “regular” place of residence is the Cleveland area. When he was living in Chagrin Falls on the east side he was able to live in pretty much anonymity since the locals would basically refuse to point him out to anyone dropping by to do a story on him. He was known to just go and autograph his books in the local book store and there was a story where a local landmark candy store was having a coloring contest for kids, you know the ones where they all get hung up on the wall, and low and behold a perfect on of Calvin appeared.
dexwood
@Napoleon:
That’s nice to hear, that he would do things like that.
ruemara
I love Watterson and respect the care he shows his creations. It takes a lot of time to create and the commoditization of it is painful, but necessary for survival. I still have all the books. I guess, I’m hoping to avoid my own Howard Roark moment.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Gromit:
I think it was supposed to represent the best-case scenario — But what if Pixar wanted to adapt your strip?
G and I were talking about the interview this morning and we both agreed that Watterson is right — when an author agrees to let a film or TV adaptation be made of his work, it changes how people read the book. How many kids read Peter Pan or Mary Poppins these days?
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Or for that matter, Lord of the Rings?
It’s not so much the fact that movies need to show rather than tell the story, or that material has to be discarded for budget/time reasons; my objection to adaptations is that directors feel like they need to “fix” the story/characters, as Jackson did with Theoden, Faramir, Merry, Pippin, Arwen, etc, etc. People who watch the movie often miss the point the original author was trying to make, and never go back to the original work.
dmbeaster
@NotMax:
Not that it matters much, but the classic reason for this type of obscure demand was to test whether or not the promoters actually read the contract requirements. Its like burying a typo in a document to catch a plagiarist. Most of the time, its the promoters in a one time deal with talent that just ignores what the contractual requirements are.
Frankensteinbeck
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
It goes far, far beyond this. As a writer, what Disney does in their novel adaptations drives me to rage. They consistently produce a movie that is the exact opposite of the author’s intentions. In the books, Mary Poppins is an ice cold bitch, Peter Pan is a murderous psycho (man, that’s a creepy book), Fox and the Hound is brutal and pessimistic, and the climax of the Rescuers books is when Bernard asks Miss Bianca to marry him… and she says ‘no’. Usually they wait for the author to be dead, but the creator of Mary Poppins was so furious about the movie that she put in her will that no American will ever be allowed to do an adaptation again. Oh, and they’re very shady about living up to contracts, which is why they’re engaged in a long-running legal battle with A. A. Milne’s family.
Cris (without an H)
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): I totally agree. I’ve often seen the argument that you shouldn’t complain about an adaptation, because the original will still always be there. Technically true, but in practice meaningless.
Come to think of it, it’s not even true: look at the Wizard of Oz. Go to the library and look in the children’s section. I bet you’ll find at least one abridged version that pares down Baum’s original to include only the parts that were in the film.
This is why I made damned sure to read The Hobbit To my son before the film came out. I wanted him to have his own sense of the story, uncolored by a media juggernaut’s aesthetic. How many kids are going to read that book expecting to find Radagast riding a bunny sleigh?
Frankensteinbeck
As for the OP, it means a lot to me because my friend Dana is in syndication producing Heavenly Nostrils. She was very, very lucky that they are letting her keep the rights. That was luck, because she wasn’t in a position to demand it. These contracts are offering food on the creator’s table and the chance of a lifetime that will not be repeated. They’re a dream come true, and a side effect of that is that you have to take what you’re given.
Cris (without an H)
@Frankensteinbeck: Disney seems to love Hans Christian Anderson’s stories and hate his endings. Both The Little Mermaid and the “Steadfast Tin Soldier” (in Fantasia 2000) discard tragedy and replace it with triumph.
fidelio
@HeartlandLiberal: Luckily for us all, the Pogo strips are being reissued, with Volume 3 due out in the spring of next year. Amazon has a nice deal on a boxed set of the first two volumes.
When my mother moved into her retirement home, my nephew, who is under 40), was insistent on getting the volumes of Pogo she had acquired over the years when she began divesting herself of kipple. I am confident his children will be well-indoctrinated.
My mother has always said, based on her experience, that Calvin is one of the most perfectly genuine children in modern culture.
Violet
I love Calvin and Hobbes. So glad I have the books and can re-read them.
LanceThruster
I always thought Howard Roark was a sellout for quarrying marble for someone else’s vision.
LanceThruster
It’s truly amazing how well “Calvinball” describes the workings of Congress.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Bobby Thomson: Jesus Christ on a pogo stick – so Watterson is pure because his wife supported him with her career???? The man is a fucking special snow flake and a self centered prick. No wonder they brought of up Atlas Shrugs in the interview – classic Libertarian.
Meanwhile with in the real world here is what a professional artist told me;
Q: What is the difference a large pizza and an artist?
A. A large pizza can feed a family of four.
I guess when artists have to compete with the likes of Watterson who can afford to work for free no wonder that’s true.
The Other Chuck
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: All that rage can’t be healthy.
Mnemosyne
@Frankensteinbeck:
Actually, no, they’re engaged in a long-running legal battle with the family of Stephen Slesinger, who licensed rights from both Disney and the Milne family. The Milnes have absolutely nothing to do with ongoing legal case, other than creating the original problem by licensing the rights to multiple parties.
The ugliest and most contentious issue? Deciding who first put the red t-shirt on Pooh. Seriously.
Bostondreams
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
No. If you read after the strip, the strip illustrates someone else’s life, using Watterson’s words and art style. He did his work after getting fired from a political cartooning job and moving in with his parents.
Mnemosyne
@Frankensteinbeck:
Not that Disney’s not shady about living up to contracts, BTW. Just pointing out that you have the wrong family — the Milnes haven’t been part of the lawsuit for at least a decade, if not longer.
Liberty60
I’m extremely happy that Calvin & Hobbes will not ever be made into a movie.
Not because of bowdlerization of plot or character (although that would definitely happen) but because it was uniquely created for a static 2 dimensional media.
Seeing Calvin rendered in Pixar 3D would be horrifying; hearing a voice coming from his mouth would shock us, since we already have a voice imagined.
Watterson loved his media, and reveled in it; Seeing it brought into a different medium couldn’t possibly make it better.
Liberty60
@Bobby Thomson:
Thank you for that link.
I showed it to my college age son, as a visual example of my earlier advice to follow his bliss and choose a career that satisfied his soul and made him a better person, rather than casting about for the most lucrative or status-enhancing option.
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Actually Waterson’s advice is the exact opposite of libertarian thinking.
Rejecting avarice and status, and choosing instead to create works that are soul satisfying is a much deeper and profound way of enaging and bonding with society than simply choosing to “get a good job”.
NotMax
@dmbeaster
Used the example as a shorthand generic marker more than anything else.
Could have said “suddenly demanding champagne and tacos at 9 on a Sunday night or else she refused to go on” (actually happened to me when I worked a sideline job for a record company*), but the reference wouldn’t have had resonance as widespread.
*As it was in Pennsylvania (no liquor sales on Sunday) and in the early 70s (no taco places), I stood my ground. She played the tantrum card for a bit, then went on without them. Not an obscure musical personage, either.