

Calvin & Hobbes Search Engine - dasil003
http://michaelyingling.com/random/calvin_and_hobbes/

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tobtoh
I run the Cool Calvin and Hobbes Collection - <http://calvinandhobbes.me> \-
and as one of the very early fan sites have seen many C&H fan sites come and
go.

For most of the past 15 years, the most popular C&H site was Martijn Reemst's
site which was truly comprehensive. Sadly that was taken down a few years ago
because it featured a search engine. The same thing happened to S. Anand's fan
site once they offered a search engine as well.

From what I have observed, in the late 90's Universal Press Syndicate was
quite aggressive in pursuing C&H fan sites and getting them shutdown. However
from 2000 onwards, they have taken a much more relaxed (enlightened?) approach
with few C&H fan sites being pursued for copyright infringement. In fact, the
only sites that I know that have been shutdown are those that have run search
engines.

I've long been tempted to add such a search engine to my site as I've already
got it all coded up and indexed already, but I'm quite fond of my site since
it was the first website I ever created (and what started me on my IT career)
and so don't want it shutdown.

~~~
jparise
It looks like he already received a cease and desist request:

    
    
      Someone at AMU got in touch with me; a C&D was (is?)
      headed my way, but they seem open to finding a better
      solution, which is AWESOME. You may see some changes here
      in the next few days/week, but hopefully it will be in the
      best interest of everyone!
    

(Click the "A note from Michael, the creator" link on the site to read the
full text.)

~~~
tobtoh
I also just noticed that Marcello's site is now unavailable. Marcello had
downloaded the entire collection of Calvin and Hobbes comic strips from the
gocomic site and made it available for download on his site. I've been
surprised that it's lasted for so many months without any C&D notices being
sent.

However, Michaels' search engine mentions Marcello's website as the source of
the images and it looks like that has drawn the attention of the AMU lawyers
(unless it's simply overloaded from demand).

I wouldn't be surprised if the script on scribd is taken down soon either.

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dermatthias
There used to be another search engine by S. Anand, but it was taken down
because of copyright bullshit (<http://www.s-anand.net/calvinandhobbes.html>).
Wonder what will happen with this one...

~~~
vijaydev
Here's his post about taking down the site: [http://www.s-anand.net/blog/the-
calvin-and-hobbes-search-tak...](http://www.s-anand.net/blog/the-calvin-and-
hobbes-search-takedown/)

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ed
Neat. An empty query brings up every strip:

[http://michaelyingling.com/random/calvin_and_hobbes/search.p...](http://michaelyingling.com/random/calvin_and_hobbes/search.php)

~~~
edkennedy
Your comment certainly contributed to bringing down the hosting.

~~~
ed
_Shrug._ I think bad code had more to do with it.

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EvanK
This would be awesome if the website hosting the strips was actually up. Poor
little sad broken image icons...

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quinndupont
I love Calvin and Hobbes but Watterson famously does not like these sorts of
derivative works. Still, awesome service.

Service appears to be struggling to stay up.

~~~
tobtoh
Bill Watterson objected to derivative works - ie C&H baseball caps, cartoons,
fridge magnets, bumper stickers, colouring in books etc.

A search engine isn't a derivative work (at least in the way that Watterson
dislikes). The objections to the search engines come from the publisher under
the guise of copyright infringement. I would assume that whilst they can turn
a blind eye to a fan site with the occasional infringing comic strips, they
can't turn a blind eye to a search engine which contains the entire script of
C&H.

~~~
docgnome
If that is so then what is with all the urinating Calvin stickers? Every time
I see one I feel like my childhood is being wizzed on.

~~~
tobtoh
Those stickers are derivative work - unsanctioned and thoroughly frowned upon
derivative work.

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otherdave
Wow, great idea with the Search engine. Hopefully it can stay around for a
while.

I've got a C & H fan site up at <http://dontknockmysmock.com>. It gets pretty
low traffic and so far I haven't gotten any notice to take it down.

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jasonkester
Nice. I did a quick search for my favorite strip and it came up as the first
result:

[http://michaelyingling.com/random/calvin_and_hobbes/search.p...](http://michaelyingling.com/random/calvin_and_hobbes/search.php?phrase=hammer)

There's lots of quotable stuff in the Calvin & Hobbes universe. Nice to see
there's finally a way to find it.

Need one of these for Bloom County next.

~~~
makmanalp
Here's my fave:
[http://michaelyingling.com/random/calvin_and_hobbes/search.p...](http://michaelyingling.com/random/calvin_and_hobbes/search.php?phrase=cynically+manipulate)

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samratjp
I like how the search engine made by Bing :)

(Click on Why? to find out)

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bakhlawa
Might just be me, but in IE I get an auth login that never goes away...had to
go through Task Manager to kill the browser.

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gacba
Can't be the REAL C&H search engine: I tried typing in "Bill Watterson" in the
box and got NO search results. Seriously? If there's one query to get right,
it's that one.

~~~
tobtoh
Not really - the search engine is to search the Calvin and Hobbes comic
strips. The strips never make any mention of Bill Watterson, so the fact you
got zero results is completely accurate.

~~~
PidGin128
To split hairs, I imagine his signature could be found in most of the
comics...

~~~
tobtoh
To split it even further, he only signed his strips as 'Watterson' and so a
search for 'Bill Watterson' or 'Bill AND Watterson' should return zero results
:P

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ritonlajoie
about the fansites and the copyright, why don't the webmasters do that on
stuff like onioncat ?

