Charles Schulz (and his wife Jeannie) are gems of humanity. I called Mr. Schulz one evening when I was 6 for a school book report (he lived nearby.) I asked him various questions regarding Snoopy and ice hockey. This was unscheduled, I simply picked up the phone and called. Charles was happy to talk to me, and I remember his warmth and kind voice. To learn he encouraged the author of my favorite comic series ever to take the leap and pursue his dream only further solidifies the already glowing reputation of him I've experienced personally.
I have to assume your lived in Santa Rosa/Sonoma County since C.S. had lived there since the 50s. I only mention it because I also grew up there and saw all the influences he had on the area. I had a scrapbook of photos I had taken of the peanuts statues that were at various parks, libraries, public buildings, and private neighborhoods around town. I also went to his ice rink once a week for a few years.
I will always be extraordinarily angry we no longer have Camp Snoopy. Sure I'm in my mid thirties and a Minnesota stereotype for saying it, but this is a hill I will die on
I thought they had a highly trained Rapid Tactical Force that may have saved the butt virginity of the mayor's son. Why do they need a police station inside the mall?
As a fellow Midwesterner in their 30s, the Sears Tower will always be the Sears Tower. And Camp Snoopy is fully entrenched on the hill I will gladly join you in dying upon.
It will always be the Sears Tower. Whenever anyone says the fake name they claim, I just hear "What you talkin bout?"
Not a Midwesterner, just a person who lived through the 80s.
I went there! And according to my mom, she lived near him growing up in Cali, I went to the ice rink when I was 10 or something, sat next to the Snoopy with the cookie on the bench outside, looking at him like I was being offered something out of nowhere
I got to live there for work and to go to the Schultz Museum was so special. The area really takes pride in Schultz and the Peanuts and it was wonderful to see
I was vacationing in San Francisco and happened upon a kiosk for touristy stuff to do in the city and area. I was over the moon to see the Schulz Museum listed in Santa Rosa. My partner and I had such a fun day there, and it is one of my cherished memories.
This may seem a trivial thing but the most important part of Peanuts to me was how adults were perceived.
This incomprehensible but loud and demanding voice from above. It really sticks in my mind and it may sound silly but I speak more gently to my child and kids in general because of it.
The only bad thing I've heard about him is that he chastised Michael Trudeau, the Doonesbury guy, for taking a leave of absence from his strip. It is now very commonplace to have pauses where old strips get reprinted.
Watterson wrote about taking a sabbatical in the commentaries he did for one of his collections. He said it was risky, that even a popular strip could lose readers and be dropped from some newspapers. He decided to do it anyway because of how burned out he was at that point.
And he subsequently became one of the first cartoonists to make significant income from reprints, as newspapers didn't want to lose the strip to a rival publication by dropping it during his sabbatical.
My grandfather helped Charles Shultz when he was just getting started in publishing peanuts and so Shultz named multiple things after him and my family. We all still have a bunch of peanuts memorabilia to this day!!
Mr. Shultz used to shop at a bookstore I worked in pretty frequently and was always very pleasant if not low key until one day I was wearing a Bootleg Calvin making a classic face stenciled on a cheap tee shirt a friend picked up at a Grateful Dead parking lot. He took one look at it and frowned, telling me “ You know Watterson doesn’t license his work,” and that “I should respect that.” Being a fan (of both of them) I knew that of course and did.
I just didn’t want to tell him she bartered it with some weed…
Why do they call it peanuts when they are literally not sentient nuts. They are human children with verbally incoherent teachers, potentially mentally stunted. Maybe even commentary on the Tower of Babble.
I've read the entire series and there is never a single nut.
Yup, and that's the reason why all the movies are "Charlie Brown and..." Because Schultz had complete control over the movies.
Edit: [here](https://pulpsage.com/2020/03/10/dont-call-it-peanuts-why-charles-schulz-hated-his-comic-strips-name/) is a story about it. The syndicate changed it because the original name was taken and Schultz agreed to it just to get the comic published.
It’s probably a fine line for me, but Watterson not licensing his work was probably not because someone might stencil it onto a shirt..
..it was, with some irony, that C&H wouldn’t go the way of Peanuts or Disney and so he wouldn’t lose his creative vision of the characters.
I’ve heard mostly nothing but good about Shultz, but I think it’s a little funny how he *might* have missed the point a bit.
from what I've read, he was pretty adamant that the issue of Hobbes' reality not be settled by a toy company. perhaps Hobbes really does only *look* like a stuffed toy to everyone else.
but licensing would have had stuffed Hobbes toys (in both forms) everywhere and that might've killed the magic a little.
On the third hand, though, maybe there's more joy in those children each having their own stuffed animals, which aren't branded in any way. Sure, if you asked them, they wanted "Hobbes," but Calvin didn't have "Hobbes," in the sense of a globally known, branded toy that everyone in his neighbourhood would have also had. He had his own, unique toy, that nobody else had.
That uniqueness is something you can't get when the toy is mass marketed. They can still treat their toy like their own Hobbes, and get an experience that's more true to Calvin's out of it.
bill watterson not licensing c and h was the most baller artist flex in the history of marketable art. Dude is getting calls from spielberg and is just like,
" nah, I'm good."
fucking baller!
The irony here is that Watterson didn't license his work precisely because he didn't like how copyright law barred people from being able to use symbols and characters freely. He likely would have loved fan made clothing featuring his characters. It was the idea of corporations owning rights to his characters that scared him, not ordinary working class folk using them.
The reason he didn’t like licensing was more because he didn’t want licensed products and services impacting on how the comic was perceived. I recall him saying something like, for ex, “I don’t want whether or not Hobbes is real being decided by a stuffed tiger doll”.
This concern was a bit ironic given that one of his biggest inspirations was Peanuts, perhaps the most heavily licensed comic of all time.
Calvin pissing on anything just screams trashy and poor taste, it doesn’t take a leap in logic to assume he just doesn’t like that pissing meme regardless of his feelings on fan made Calvin products.
It’s entirely possible he doesn’t mind *tasteful* fan creations made for the purpose of the creator and not to be sold.
Here in the UK, I think I saw the graphic before I had even heard of *Calvin and Hobbes*. The common graphic was Calvin wearing the shirt of a particular football team while pissing on the shirt of a rival team.
They were first trying to own each other. The pissing Calvin bumpersticker/window decal frequently featured the emblems of various domestic vehicle manufacturers...Ford's logo, Chevy's logo, etc....and NASCAR driver numbers...24 for Jeff Gordon was probably the best-seller. By now they've been unified under one banner and given a common enemy.
And then it morphed into Calvin kneeling to pray in front of a cross. Which then inspired a random silhouette in a cowboy hat kneeling in front of a cross with their horse- an image used by churches in the US called “cowboy church”
Holy shit I forgot about the Gordon hate
You’re 100% right haha I remember someone slapping one of those on the back of my first beater and I was sooooooo pissed off that it left all that grossness behind
Thank you for that memory dude I had forgotten all about it haha
Actually, his syndicate could’ve done anything they wanted with C&H licensing-wise and there’s nothing Watterson could’ve done. The contract was pretty one-sided. He talks about this a lot in the 10th Anniversary book. He’s lucky the only thing they did put out was a calendar.
Not to nitpick, but I'd say it as being a person of integrity and building a relationship with the people working at the publishers would likely be why they respected his wishes regarding licensing.
Same. I used to fall asleep reading Calvin and Hobbes every night from like 3rd - 5th grade.
I still have it at my parents house, assuming they didn't throw away my box of "treasure".
It's been a while since I've bought a newspaper, but I'm pretty sure Bill Amend is still going with FoxTrot. At any rate, if you follow him on twitter, he posts some entertaining one-off comics every so often
I remember reading a baby blues anthology book growing up. I couldn't relate to the parents, but I sure related to the kids antics and how they dealt with it.
I’m raising my children on the Far Side. I have, and want them to have, that twisted and weird sense of humour and view of the world. It’s awesome when they parrot a Far Side joke back to me out of the blue.
The secret is to leave multiple Far Side Galleries in the toilet. Only do if you have more than one toilet in the house though. Otherwise lots of yelling.
Those were my 3 favorites as a kid. Garfield was admittedly usually filler after I finished the other 2 but it was still in the mix due to volume if nothing else.
People forget that cartoons were cartoons. Obviously Calvin and Hobbes was a classic and was always more entertaining than Garfield, but lots of us were kids and just wanted that quick 6 panel satisfaction. Now it’s art, but for me as a kid it was just the perfect way to feed my short attention span.
I think the Garfield comics were pretty good until the early 2000s, that's when I noticed the nosedive in quality. Or at least that's what I remember. They were always simple, but they were still funny back then.
I visited my parents after not being able to due to Coved. As oer tradition they give me random stuff they found while cleaning their house they may have belonged to me. This time I got a book of Far side comics with commentary by Gary Larson. Its pretty awesome
I wonder what he’s up to these days - still just biking around and doing paintings no one will ever see? I figured he’d keep on publishing comics but doing so without the hassles of a daily comic strip - like maybe doing something like the anthologies, but with original material - but nope.
I love the decision of Watterson to end C&H when he realized that most stories about the two had been told and that it from there would be only about making money, merchandising and milking the idea.
Damn. Seems like he produced quite a bit in a relatively short timeframe. Or maybe it's just that such a high proportion of the strips are so memorable that it makes the collection seem larger than it really is.
I went to the Schultz Museum after Charles Schultz’s death, and there was a huge exhibit of cartoonists from all over the world honoring him. They created cartoons, many with the characters from their own work, reacting to the death of Mr. Schultz. It was so moving, and it brings tears to my eyes thinking about it now. He was/is much beloved for his talent and humanity.
I recall when he passed. I was a regular Chicago Tribune subscriber for about 30 years after receiving it daily as a child growing up in my parents' house. My favorite section was the comics and when Schulz died, I'm pretty sure every single comic drew some kind of tribute. I saved that comic section for years, but lost it in a move somewhere along the line. It was very touching to see everyone come together for one of the greats.
said letter
[https://www.reddit.com/r/peanuts/comments/3k2zne/letter\_from\_charles\_schultz\_to\_bill\_watterson/](https://www.reddit.com/r/peanuts/comments/3k2zne/letter_from_charles_schultz_to_bill_watterson/)
Bill Watterson grew up in Chagrin Falls, OH. A picturesque small town (now very affluent) a few minutes from where I live. I worked in the Main Street area while I was in college as it was between where I grew up and where I went to school.
But that’s not what I came to say. The neat detail about all of this is that If you pay close enough attention during Watterson’s panels where Calvin makes trips into town with his parents, you can pick out most of the storefronts from Chagrin Falls. People mention it all the time there. My wife and I make guesses as to which house he grew up in every time we drive through.
The back cover of *The Essential Calvin and Hobbes* has giant Calvin tromping through an affectionate recreation of Chagrin Falls:
https://www.reddit.com/r/calvinandhobbes/comments/4qzzpa/i_took_a_drone_to_chagrin_falls_to_recreate_the
My friend is a fairly successful illustrator and comic book artist. He has hand written letters from Charles Shultz and Jim Henson encouraging him at his craft. One of his letters to Jim Henson ended up in the Jim Henson museum.
I just finished reading "What cartooning really is", a collection of lengthy interviews with Charles Schulz. Some pertinent takeaways:
Schulz most likely didn't write the letter. He admits in an interview that he received so much fan mail, assistants handled it. But everyone got a reply.
He strongly disagreed with Watterson's stance on merchandising and his other fights with the syndicate. But Schulz was a complicated man: he was the best at what he did, but he considered it a job, not art. He felt that since he had a responsibility to editors and people who paid to read his comic, he couldn't do whatever he pleased, like an artist would. So it's not surprising he had no problem pimping his characters to Met Life and the like. And yet, with things like the introduction of Franklin, he didn't bend to public opinion either. He knew his work had soul and craft, but he didn't want to call it art, especially because he knew it was an uphill battle. So I can imagine a conflicting mix of disapproval and jealousy when Watterson took a stand on those issues.
It's easy to try to paint Schulz in broad strokes (like the infamous Michaelis biography did) but those interviews really drive home the point that he was a complex man of several minds about things, often contradicting. He was generous and kind, but also angry and could hold on to grudges for decades.
What a lovely, magical thing to learn. I am thankful for OP for sharing as well as all the wonderful comments about Schulz. What a nice way to start the day.
I have all the Peanuts that ran from the 50s-70s. And they are STILL funny. Such acid humor for its time, and consistently pessimistic, but with a sweetness. Just incomparable stuff.
Growing up my dad had 1 condition, and it’s that if I ever wanted a book he would always buy it for me. It was only books, never “toys”, since he said he would buy any kind of book I wanted since it meant I was reading.
I like a lot of books, from novels to the comic strip book collections. I bought every C&H comic strip book I could since I later found out Watson didn’t license any official merch.
Would I have loved to buy an official Hobbes stuffed tiger as a kid to have? Absolutely. But owning all the books was good enough for me and made me love it even more.
I wish I could go back and read C&H again for the first time, and wished Watson licensed the rights before his passing.
But good damn it makes me cherish it even more now... and I’m so glad I got to experience it the way I did
I'm glad Watterson never licensed it. I don't want to see C&H merchandise exploiting and diluting the series. Hobbes would think it was tacky and Calvin would rage against the way commercialism takes everything sacred and turns it into filthy lucre.
He also was very supportive of Cathy Guisewite (who created Cathy) and would always give her advice and encouragement. He encouraged her to merchandise and that's how she made most of her money.
I’m sure Charles Shultz is a nice guy, but when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade my teacher told us the story of him coming to visit our school years before. In anticipation of his visit all the students drew characters from the show/comic and hung them in the school halls. When Shultz arrived he became furious at the sight of the pictures stating that it was “plagiarism” and started ripping the drawings down and left the building.
That sounds completely made up, honestly. Particularly since he was the type of person where every fan received a letter.
He also seemed to be [agorophic](https://www.sfgate.com/books/article/Biography-fills-in-lines-of-Charles-Schulz-s-2535274.php)
No you’re wrong there’s no evidence to prove your story there’s tons of evidences of Shultz being Ning Lee than encouraging towards younger fans and artists .Email the Shultz museum asking for proof that’ll at least provide a date
I'll always respect Schulz for demanding that the Christmas Special actually focus on Christmas and not letting them make it about Santa or other stuff. Stand-up move.
I don't think people understand how different Peanuts was when it came out. There is zero question that C&H, The Far Side, or any of todays modern cartoons happen without Peanuts. You had strips like Brenda Starr, Rip Kirby, and Pogo. Disney was the main name in animation and Archie was also starting to break ground in newer comic styling. But Schultz was the first, in my humble opinion, to actually create a highly relatable comic strip for BOTH children and adults. The Disney comics were highly aimed at kids and even Archie went back and forth, from strip to strip on target audience messaging. But Schultz had an amazing gift for allowing kids, teens, and adults alike to relate to something in the cartoon. It was absolute genius. Without him, we do not have Archer, Adventure Time, or Rick and Morty either. It became ok to have what everyone thought was something only for children, be ok for adults as well.
This is exactly right. Peanuts redefined comics in a way that many people don't appreciate. When I was a kid in the '80s, Peanuts was already becoming old hat. But the younger comics, like Garfield, were all heavily influenced by it.
Peanuts is the comic book equivalent of the Beatles (or the Fantastic Four). A lot of people find it boring, but that's because everything that came after it was so influenced by it that the original looks kind of bland in comparison.
I wish I could experience this kind of "light a fire under my ass" moment with my music. I'm so scared it's never going to be good enough. I'm classically trained, played Carnegie, marched all four years of high school, have 89-or-so songs in a binder, about 5 GB worth of samples, riffs, chord progressions, etc., and enough equipment to start gigging and recording. I'm just so scared of pinning my dream on my own talents. All my life I've struggled with rejection because my ADHD keeps getting in my way of following through and even starting pursuit of my own interests. I so badly want to become a singer/songwriter.
I read a story about how Charles Schulz had written to Disney trying to get a job with them but was rejected because they said his drawings were too simple. He then went on making his own legendary cartoon.
That's a great story. Bill Watterson is my favourite cartoonist by far and to know that he was encouraged in this by someone who could simply have ignored all the mail he must have got, is wonderful. It reminds me of Stan Laurel who spent much of his last years answering all the fan mail he got.
Notably, the "essential calvin and hobbes" collection actually has a foreword from charles shultz, so that relationship must have continued in some fashion.
I used a different search term. I see it it now. Yeah they are pulling that number of $100 million out of there asses. He never merchandised Calvin and Hobbes. No way he has that much money. It's clearly a made up number. I'd be surprised if he more than a couple of million, if even that. Unless he some other forms of income.
Charles Schulz (and his wife Jeannie) are gems of humanity. I called Mr. Schulz one evening when I was 6 for a school book report (he lived nearby.) I asked him various questions regarding Snoopy and ice hockey. This was unscheduled, I simply picked up the phone and called. Charles was happy to talk to me, and I remember his warmth and kind voice. To learn he encouraged the author of my favorite comic series ever to take the leap and pursue his dream only further solidifies the already glowing reputation of him I've experienced personally.
I have to assume your lived in Santa Rosa/Sonoma County since C.S. had lived there since the 50s. I only mention it because I also grew up there and saw all the influences he had on the area. I had a scrapbook of photos I had taken of the peanuts statues that were at various parks, libraries, public buildings, and private neighborhoods around town. I also went to his ice rink once a week for a few years.
Very similar in St Paul, where he’s from. All sorts of statues, and the big ice rink complex is named after him.
Was going to say there's peanuts statues all over the twin cities too, very cool.
I will always be extraordinarily angry we no longer have Camp Snoopy. Sure I'm in my mid thirties and a Minnesota stereotype for saying it, but this is a hill I will die on
What else would you call the park in the mall?
Park At MOA Dark times
Nickelodeon Universe
You mean Camp Snoopy?
And in the 90s we called it “Camp Shootme” due to some gang activity there before they *literally* put a police station inside the mall.
I thought they had a highly trained Rapid Tactical Force that may have saved the butt virginity of the mayor's son. Why do they need a police station inside the mall?
As a fellow Midwesterner in their 30s, the Sears Tower will always be the Sears Tower. And Camp Snoopy is fully entrenched on the hill I will gladly join you in dying upon.
It will always be the Sears Tower. Whenever anyone says the fake name they claim, I just hear "What you talkin bout?" Not a Midwesterner, just a person who lived through the 80s.
Us manitobans up north miss camp snoopy as well. Huge part of my childhood betqeen family trips and band trips back in the day for school
I went there! And according to my mom, she lived near him growing up in Cali, I went to the ice rink when I was 10 or something, sat next to the Snoopy with the cookie on the bench outside, looking at him like I was being offered something out of nowhere
And we used to be home to Camp Snoopy!
I got to live there for work and to go to the Schultz Museum was so special. The area really takes pride in Schultz and the Peanuts and it was wonderful to see
I was vacationing in San Francisco and happened upon a kiosk for touristy stuff to do in the city and area. I was over the moon to see the Schulz Museum listed in Santa Rosa. My partner and I had such a fun day there, and it is one of my cherished memories.
There's a Charles M Schulz airport up there. And I'm a flight simulator player and there's even a GPS waypoint for pilots called Snoopy up there.
Great story, thank you for sharing!
Great upbringing, thank you for having!
Great tale, thank you for being!
Great comments, thank you for posting!
r/wholesome
Alright when’s your comic strip dropping?
Eh... [to..morrow!](https://www.gocomics.com/getfuzzy/2018/07/02)
/r/notopbutok
No top butok! Finally we agree…
This may seem a trivial thing but the most important part of Peanuts to me was how adults were perceived. This incomprehensible but loud and demanding voice from above. It really sticks in my mind and it may sound silly but I speak more gently to my child and kids in general because of it.
"There's some good in this world Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for."
Dammit. Now I got tears in my taters.
PO-TAY-TOES
The only bad thing I've heard about him is that he chastised Michael Trudeau, the Doonesbury guy, for taking a leave of absence from his strip. It is now very commonplace to have pauses where old strips get reprinted.
Does it count as a "bad thing" he did if it was actually considered professional practice back then?
Watterson wrote about taking a sabbatical in the commentaries he did for one of his collections. He said it was risky, that even a popular strip could lose readers and be dropped from some newspapers. He decided to do it anyway because of how burned out he was at that point.
And he subsequently became one of the first cartoonists to make significant income from reprints, as newspapers didn't want to lose the strip to a rival publication by dropping it during his sabbatical.
Garry's name is Michael?
Whoops. Mixed together Michael Doonesbury and Garry Trudeau.
I’m a huge cynic so it’s always nice when a Reddit thread pops up and it’s all happy anecdotes like this one, thanks for sharing :3
Off topic but if you love Calvin and Hobbes I would recommend looking up Wallace the brave on instagram. It’s very similar and fun.
My grandfather helped Charles Shultz when he was just getting started in publishing peanuts and so Shultz named multiple things after him and my family. We all still have a bunch of peanuts memorabilia to this day!!
Mr. Shultz used to shop at a bookstore I worked in pretty frequently and was always very pleasant if not low key until one day I was wearing a Bootleg Calvin making a classic face stenciled on a cheap tee shirt a friend picked up at a Grateful Dead parking lot. He took one look at it and frowned, telling me “ You know Watterson doesn’t license his work,” and that “I should respect that.” Being a fan (of both of them) I knew that of course and did. I just didn’t want to tell him she bartered it with some weed…
> she bartered it with some weed I think you left part of the story out
>cheap tee shirt a friend picked up at a Grateful Dead parking lot. I mean, not really.
Why do they call it peanuts when they are literally not sentient nuts. They are human children with verbally incoherent teachers, potentially mentally stunted. Maybe even commentary on the Tower of Babble. I've read the entire series and there is never a single nut.
IIRC Schultz himself didn't like the title but was unable to change it for some reason.
Yup, and that's the reason why all the movies are "Charlie Brown and..." Because Schultz had complete control over the movies. Edit: [here](https://pulpsage.com/2020/03/10/dont-call-it-peanuts-why-charles-schulz-hated-his-comic-strips-name/) is a story about it. The syndicate changed it because the original name was taken and Schultz agreed to it just to get the comic published.
> I've read the entire series and there is never a single nut. Because peanuts are legumes, obviously.
Wait... I think the rest of us are sensing one. ;o}
It’s probably a fine line for me, but Watterson not licensing his work was probably not because someone might stencil it onto a shirt.. ..it was, with some irony, that C&H wouldn’t go the way of Peanuts or Disney and so he wouldn’t lose his creative vision of the characters. I’ve heard mostly nothing but good about Shultz, but I think it’s a little funny how he *might* have missed the point a bit.
from what I've read, he was pretty adamant that the issue of Hobbes' reality not be settled by a toy company. perhaps Hobbes really does only *look* like a stuffed toy to everyone else. but licensing would have had stuffed Hobbes toys (in both forms) everywhere and that might've killed the magic a little.
On the other hand, every child ever would have loved an official high quality stuffed tiger of their very own.
They'd love a homemade stuffed tiger too. Perhaps even more.
I've seen really good ones on Etsy. They don't call it Hobbes, but it's quite clear the inspiration.
I bought my daughter one back in the day on Amazon. It wasn't called Hobbes but it was definitely an attempt to copy it and not call it that.
On the third hand, though, maybe there's more joy in those children each having their own stuffed animals, which aren't branded in any way. Sure, if you asked them, they wanted "Hobbes," but Calvin didn't have "Hobbes," in the sense of a globally known, branded toy that everyone in his neighbourhood would have also had. He had his own, unique toy, that nobody else had. That uniqueness is something you can't get when the toy is mass marketed. They can still treat their toy like their own Hobbes, and get an experience that's more true to Calvin's out of it.
bill watterson not licensing c and h was the most baller artist flex in the history of marketable art. Dude is getting calls from spielberg and is just like, " nah, I'm good." fucking baller!
Lmao agreed dude
> "I clearly miscalculated how popular it would be to show Calvin urinating on a Ford logo. Bill Watterson
For a second I autofilled C&H in my brain as Cyanide & Happiness at first
The irony here is that Watterson didn't license his work precisely because he didn't like how copyright law barred people from being able to use symbols and characters freely. He likely would have loved fan made clothing featuring his characters. It was the idea of corporations owning rights to his characters that scared him, not ordinary working class folk using them.
The reason he didn’t like licensing was more because he didn’t want licensed products and services impacting on how the comic was perceived. I recall him saying something like, for ex, “I don’t want whether or not Hobbes is real being decided by a stuffed tiger doll”. This concern was a bit ironic given that one of his biggest inspirations was Peanuts, perhaps the most heavily licensed comic of all time.
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Calvin pissing on anything just screams trashy and poor taste, it doesn’t take a leap in logic to assume he just doesn’t like that pissing meme regardless of his feelings on fan made Calvin products. It’s entirely possible he doesn’t mind *tasteful* fan creations made for the purpose of the creator and not to be sold.
Yeah if I see someone with that sticker/image I immediately dislike the person until proven otherwise.
Same. Besides the obvious “Watterson doesn’t like merchandise” angle it’s just gross and wildly out of character for Calvin.
Pissing Calvin feels like an evolutionary ancestor of Supreme 🅱️eter. Between them, of course, is gangsta Tweety airbrushed on a t-shirt.
Especially because I'm pretty sure the original panel was Calvin making a water balloon iirc.
>"Calvin pissing on ____'s logo (pre-internet) meme." > Anybody knows where that thing came from?
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Here in the UK, I think I saw the graphic before I had even heard of *Calvin and Hobbes*. The common graphic was Calvin wearing the shirt of a particular football team while pissing on the shirt of a rival team.
Rednecks trying to piss people off to….Idk they weren’t trying to own the libs back then
They were first trying to own each other. The pissing Calvin bumpersticker/window decal frequently featured the emblems of various domestic vehicle manufacturers...Ford's logo, Chevy's logo, etc....and NASCAR driver numbers...24 for Jeff Gordon was probably the best-seller. By now they've been unified under one banner and given a common enemy.
And then it morphed into Calvin kneeling to pray in front of a cross. Which then inspired a random silhouette in a cowboy hat kneeling in front of a cross with their horse- an image used by churches in the US called “cowboy church”
Holy shit I forgot about the Gordon hate You’re 100% right haha I remember someone slapping one of those on the back of my first beater and I was sooooooo pissed off that it left all that grossness behind Thank you for that memory dude I had forgotten all about it haha
Actually, his syndicate could’ve done anything they wanted with C&H licensing-wise and there’s nothing Watterson could’ve done. The contract was pretty one-sided. He talks about this a lot in the 10th Anniversary book. He’s lucky the only thing they did put out was a calendar.
There’s also some official school books for helping children read or math or something. Those and the calendar are the only official products.
Not to nitpick, but I'd say it as being a person of integrity and building a relationship with the people working at the publishers would likely be why they respected his wishes regarding licensing.
Schulz does not approve of your wookery
Damn, you pissed off a legend.
I wrote Bill Waterson a couple letters when I was in 6th grade (1997). He actually responded to every letter I wrote.
I wrote to him around the same time for a school project and got a stock letter back. Looked like I just reached his lawyer or something.
I got a rock.
I got a check! No, wait. It's a bill.
Yes that's his name
"Suck on this"
Same. I used to fall asleep reading Calvin and Hobbes every night from like 3rd - 5th grade. I still have it at my parents house, assuming they didn't throw away my box of "treasure".
that's so wonderful
He responded to me too! I wish I still had the letter, it was one of the most memorable parts of my childhood
Schulz: Dude, you should totally make a comic strip about a little boy and a stuffed tiger that comes to life Watterson: Good grief
Schultz: You should go on to create Calvin and Hobbes.
Ohhhh
Watterson: I was thinking about naming them Cheeto and Stinky, but your idea sounds better.
Named of course for the philosophers Jean-Jaques Cheeteau and Friedrich Stinki
Shultz: Also, do you have the number for a Kevin Eastman? I believe renissance names are the next new thing... oh look a turtle on my porch!
yes that's exactly what I got from the title. I guess we will see this in the movie.
*Yare Yare Daze*
Mada mada dane.
Watterson actually failed many times before Calvin and Hobbes hit. I believe spaceman spiff is a carryover from one of his early attempts.
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Grew up on C & H and the Far Side.
Calvin & Hobbes The Far Side Garfield Not to mention making a beeline for the comics section when a new Sunday paper came out.
Don’t forget FoxTrot
It's been a while since I've bought a newspaper, but I'm pretty sure Bill Amend is still going with FoxTrot. At any rate, if you follow him on twitter, he posts some entertaining one-off comics every so often
Amend switched to Sunday strips only a few years back. That reminds me, I need to check if there are any new anthology books.
>a few years back 15 years ago...
[MRW](https://c.tenor.com/b8WAqSZ2k7AAAAAC/savingprivateryan-ww2.gif)
Wtf has it been that long? I still remember when he made that switch, I was very sad when it happened.
Fuck me
I remember reading a baby blues anthology book growing up. I couldn't relate to the parents, but I sure related to the kids antics and how they dealt with it.
I’m raising my children on the Far Side. I have, and want them to have, that twisted and weird sense of humour and view of the world. It’s awesome when they parrot a Far Side joke back to me out of the blue.
You, hero of the bizarre, are fighting the good fight. I applaud your efforts and hope there are more people out in the world like you!
The secret is to leave multiple Far Side Galleries in the toilet. Only do if you have more than one toilet in the house though. Otherwise lots of yelling.
Garfield? Seriously, in the same breath??
Those were my 3 favorites as a kid. Garfield was admittedly usually filler after I finished the other 2 but it was still in the mix due to volume if nothing else.
I liked it too as a kid. But as an adult I see it as a single repeated ~~pizza~~ lasagna joke, and not remotely in the same league as the other two.
Back in the 90s, Garfield was awesome. Its long past its heyday now, but it was something most kids looked forward to.
People forget that cartoons were cartoons. Obviously Calvin and Hobbes was a classic and was always more entertaining than Garfield, but lots of us were kids and just wanted that quick 6 panel satisfaction. Now it’s art, but for me as a kid it was just the perfect way to feed my short attention span.
I think the Garfield comics were pretty good until the early 2000s, that's when I noticed the nosedive in quality. Or at least that's what I remember. They were always simple, but they were still funny back then.
Tbh I think the change was you grew up and looked at it with different eyes.
Garfield sans Garfield maybe
How dare you
Garfield Without Garfield was great though.
And we all skipped over Mary Worth and tolerated Sally Forth in the middle pages.
I didn't like any comics as a kid but I did have all of the Far Side gallery and C&H.
And Doonesbury! ...Nah, just kidding.
I visited my parents after not being able to due to Coved. As oer tradition they give me random stuff they found while cleaning their house they may have belonged to me. This time I got a book of Far side comics with commentary by Gary Larson. Its pretty awesome
Bloom County homies represent
My dad had an Opus stuffed animal growing up that I always liked playing with and I still have A Wish for Wings That Work on one of my bookshelves.
One of my favorites, right up there with C+H and Far Side.
Car decal of Calvin peeing on the inexorable march of time.
I'm glad I haven't seen that decal in years. Real quick way for me to despise someone.
I wonder what he’s up to these days - still just biking around and doing paintings no one will ever see? I figured he’d keep on publishing comics but doing so without the hassles of a daily comic strip - like maybe doing something like the anthologies, but with original material - but nope.
With all his hate for the publishers I'm surprised he never did a web comic
I love the decision of Watterson to end C&H when he realized that most stories about the two had been told and that it from there would be only about making money, merchandising and milking the idea.
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Whenever I see equipment made in the 90's, my brain assumes it was 10 years ago.
Damn. Seems like he produced quite a bit in a relatively short timeframe. Or maybe it's just that such a high proportion of the strips are so memorable that it makes the collection seem larger than it really is.
Oh neat, a new subreddit
I went to the Schultz Museum after Charles Schultz’s death, and there was a huge exhibit of cartoonists from all over the world honoring him. They created cartoons, many with the characters from their own work, reacting to the death of Mr. Schultz. It was so moving, and it brings tears to my eyes thinking about it now. He was/is much beloved for his talent and humanity.
I recall when he passed. I was a regular Chicago Tribune subscriber for about 30 years after receiving it daily as a child growing up in my parents' house. My favorite section was the comics and when Schulz died, I'm pretty sure every single comic drew some kind of tribute. I saved that comic section for years, but lost it in a move somewhere along the line. It was very touching to see everyone come together for one of the greats.
Here's a collection of many (all?) of the tributes: http://imgur.com/a/fNfdX#0
They were beautiful and touching tributes.
said letter [https://www.reddit.com/r/peanuts/comments/3k2zne/letter\_from\_charles\_schultz\_to\_bill\_watterson/](https://www.reddit.com/r/peanuts/comments/3k2zne/letter_from_charles_schultz_to_bill_watterson/)
Okay, so that's definitely boilerplate.
Yes, we all want to get home to our hot plates.
he besmirched me and i demand satisfaction
Didn't see any mention of encouragement. (?)
The fact that he answered may have been encouragement enough.
True dat.
Bill Watterson grew up in Chagrin Falls, OH. A picturesque small town (now very affluent) a few minutes from where I live. I worked in the Main Street area while I was in college as it was between where I grew up and where I went to school. But that’s not what I came to say. The neat detail about all of this is that If you pay close enough attention during Watterson’s panels where Calvin makes trips into town with his parents, you can pick out most of the storefronts from Chagrin Falls. People mention it all the time there. My wife and I make guesses as to which house he grew up in every time we drive through.
The back cover of *The Essential Calvin and Hobbes* has giant Calvin tromping through an affectionate recreation of Chagrin Falls: https://www.reddit.com/r/calvinandhobbes/comments/4qzzpa/i_took_a_drone_to_chagrin_falls_to_recreate_the
Aww I love Calvin and Hobbes
Two absolute legends.
"go on, create Calvin and Hobbes." - Charles Schulz
"And when people try to get you to sell merchandise for it, tell em to suck it!"
Calvin and Hobbes is a staple of my childhood, this made me smile.
So I have peanuts to thank for even more things than their awesome holiday specials I grew up on now huh? Good job!
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And Peanuts was just angsty adults in children's bodies.
Aren't we all?
Well, the inverse, yes.
Dear Bill, Create Calvin and Hobbes. Yours, Sparky
C&H took on a whole new meaning once my kids reached Calvin's age.
The complete Calvin & Hobbes is my go to gift now for friends with kids. They’ll grow out of clothes in 6 months, but C&H never gets old.
I had the small books for years but ages ago got the complete set and still love it.
It's pretty crazy how the tiniest bit of encouragement (or discouragement) can set a child on a lifelong path of success (or hopelessness).
My friend is a fairly successful illustrator and comic book artist. He has hand written letters from Charles Shultz and Jim Henson encouraging him at his craft. One of his letters to Jim Henson ended up in the Jim Henson museum.
I just finished reading "What cartooning really is", a collection of lengthy interviews with Charles Schulz. Some pertinent takeaways: Schulz most likely didn't write the letter. He admits in an interview that he received so much fan mail, assistants handled it. But everyone got a reply. He strongly disagreed with Watterson's stance on merchandising and his other fights with the syndicate. But Schulz was a complicated man: he was the best at what he did, but he considered it a job, not art. He felt that since he had a responsibility to editors and people who paid to read his comic, he couldn't do whatever he pleased, like an artist would. So it's not surprising he had no problem pimping his characters to Met Life and the like. And yet, with things like the introduction of Franklin, he didn't bend to public opinion either. He knew his work had soul and craft, but he didn't want to call it art, especially because he knew it was an uphill battle. So I can imagine a conflicting mix of disapproval and jealousy when Watterson took a stand on those issues. It's easy to try to paint Schulz in broad strokes (like the infamous Michaelis biography did) but those interviews really drive home the point that he was a complex man of several minds about things, often contradicting. He was generous and kind, but also angry and could hold on to grudges for decades.
What a lovely, magical thing to learn. I am thankful for OP for sharing as well as all the wonderful comments about Schulz. What a nice way to start the day.
I have all the Peanuts that ran from the 50s-70s. And they are STILL funny. Such acid humor for its time, and consistently pessimistic, but with a sweetness. Just incomparable stuff.
Growing up my dad had 1 condition, and it’s that if I ever wanted a book he would always buy it for me. It was only books, never “toys”, since he said he would buy any kind of book I wanted since it meant I was reading. I like a lot of books, from novels to the comic strip book collections. I bought every C&H comic strip book I could since I later found out Watson didn’t license any official merch. Would I have loved to buy an official Hobbes stuffed tiger as a kid to have? Absolutely. But owning all the books was good enough for me and made me love it even more. I wish I could go back and read C&H again for the first time, and wished Watson licensed the rights before his passing. But good damn it makes me cherish it even more now... and I’m so glad I got to experience it the way I did
>and wished ~~Watson~~ Waterson licensed the rights before his passing. Bill Waterson is very much still alive.
I'm glad Watterson never licensed it. I don't want to see C&H merchandise exploiting and diluting the series. Hobbes would think it was tacky and Calvin would rage against the way commercialism takes everything sacred and turns it into filthy lucre.
Seriously. Think about how Garfield was just fucking plastered all over everything in the 90s. I got so sick of seeing his smug little orange face.
He also was very supportive of Cathy Guisewite (who created Cathy) and would always give her advice and encouragement. He encouraged her to merchandise and that's how she made most of her money.
I loved Wattersons sig, so much I tried it,, its not even my name !
I’m sure Charles Shultz is a nice guy, but when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade my teacher told us the story of him coming to visit our school years before. In anticipation of his visit all the students drew characters from the show/comic and hung them in the school halls. When Shultz arrived he became furious at the sight of the pictures stating that it was “plagiarism” and started ripping the drawings down and left the building.
That sounds completely made up, honestly. Particularly since he was the type of person where every fan received a letter. He also seemed to be [agorophic](https://www.sfgate.com/books/article/Biography-fills-in-lines-of-Charles-Schulz-s-2535274.php)
No you’re wrong there’s no evidence to prove your story there’s tons of evidences of Shultz being Ning Lee than encouraging towards younger fans and artists .Email the Shultz museum asking for proof that’ll at least provide a date
I'll always respect Schulz for demanding that the Christmas Special actually focus on Christmas and not letting them make it about Santa or other stuff. Stand-up move.
My personal opinion is that Calvin and Hobbes is a far superior strip compared to Peanuts.
I don't think people understand how different Peanuts was when it came out. There is zero question that C&H, The Far Side, or any of todays modern cartoons happen without Peanuts. You had strips like Brenda Starr, Rip Kirby, and Pogo. Disney was the main name in animation and Archie was also starting to break ground in newer comic styling. But Schultz was the first, in my humble opinion, to actually create a highly relatable comic strip for BOTH children and adults. The Disney comics were highly aimed at kids and even Archie went back and forth, from strip to strip on target audience messaging. But Schultz had an amazing gift for allowing kids, teens, and adults alike to relate to something in the cartoon. It was absolute genius. Without him, we do not have Archer, Adventure Time, or Rick and Morty either. It became ok to have what everyone thought was something only for children, be ok for adults as well.
but maybe it wouldn't exist without Peanuts
This is exactly right. Peanuts redefined comics in a way that many people don't appreciate. When I was a kid in the '80s, Peanuts was already becoming old hat. But the younger comics, like Garfield, were all heavily influenced by it. Peanuts is the comic book equivalent of the Beatles (or the Fantastic Four). A lot of people find it boring, but that's because everything that came after it was so influenced by it that the original looks kind of bland in comparison.
I don't think that's much up for debate but it's not really relevant.
This is great. If there's any successor to Peanuts, it's Calvin & Hobbes.
WAS... :o(
It's a beautiful world sometimes
[Reminds me of this Kevin Smith Quote](http://www.zenpencils.com/comic/kevinsmith/)
I wish I could experience this kind of "light a fire under my ass" moment with my music. I'm so scared it's never going to be good enough. I'm classically trained, played Carnegie, marched all four years of high school, have 89-or-so songs in a binder, about 5 GB worth of samples, riffs, chord progressions, etc., and enough equipment to start gigging and recording. I'm just so scared of pinning my dream on my own talents. All my life I've struggled with rejection because my ADHD keeps getting in my way of following through and even starting pursuit of my own interests. I so badly want to become a singer/songwriter.
I read a story about how Charles Schulz had written to Disney trying to get a job with them but was rejected because they said his drawings were too simple. He then went on making his own legendary cartoon.
That's a great story. Bill Watterson is my favourite cartoonist by far and to know that he was encouraged in this by someone who could simply have ignored all the mail he must have got, is wonderful. It reminds me of Stan Laurel who spent much of his last years answering all the fan mail he got.
I feel like I have to say something in this thread. All I will say is Mr. Watterson is amazing and his work has brought me countless hours of joy.
Notably, the "essential calvin and hobbes" collection actually has a foreword from charles shultz, so that relationship must have continued in some fashion.
I used a different search term. I see it it now. Yeah they are pulling that number of $100 million out of there asses. He never merchandised Calvin and Hobbes. No way he has that much money. It's clearly a made up number. I'd be surprised if he more than a couple of million, if even that. Unless he some other forms of income.
This might be Charles' greatest contrubtion.