This Is Probably An Interesting Blog (but in the offhand chance it isn't…)

Here’s a fantastic exchange with Bill Watterson — the cartoonist behind the beloved Calvin & Hobbes comic strip — and an interviewer named Andrew Christie, where he explains what seem to be the first inklings of his now dogmatic stance against licensing:

Watterson: I was later offered the chance to incorporate [a character named] Robotman into my strip. There they had envisioned a character as a product–toylines, television show, everything–and they wanted a strip written around the character. They thought that maybe I could stick it in my strip, working with Calvin’s imagination or something. They didn’t really care too how much I did it, just so long as the character remained intact and would be a very major character…And I turned them down. It really went against my idea of what a comic strip should be. I’m not interested in slamming United Features here. Keep in mind that at the time, it was the only syndicate that had expressed any interest in my work. I remain grateful for their early attention. But there’s a professional issue here. They told me that if I was to insert Robotman into my strip, they would reconsider it, and because the licensing was already in production, my strip would stand a better chance of being accepted. Not knowing if Calvin and Hobbes would ever go anywhere, it was difficult to turn down another chance at syndication. But I really recoiled at the idea of drawing somebody else’s character. It’s cartooning by committee, and I have a moral problem with that. It’s not art then.

Christie: I’ve never heard of anything like that before.

Watterson: Yea, well, I think it’s really a crass way to go about it–the Saturday morning cartoons do that now, where they develop the toy and then draw the cartoon around it, and the result is the cartoon is a commercial for the toy and the toy is a commercial for the cartoon. The same thing’s happening now in comic strips; it’s just another way to get the competitive edge. You saturate all the different markets and allow each other to advertise the other, and it’s the best of all possible worlds. You can see the financial incentive to work that way. I just think it’s to the detriment of integrity in comic strip art.

Christie: It may be good business but it would be unfortunate to see that catch on.

Watterson: Yeah, I don’t have a lot of respect for that.

He hadn’t seen anything yet.

Granted, this is an older interview, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Watterson became so disillusioned with the level of commercialization in today’s art economy that he intentionally ended Calvin & Hobbes prematurely. He’s become the JD Salinger of the comic strip; a curmudgeonly recluse who’s removed himself from the world he once tried talking sense to.