

Startup - Bill Watterson, a cartoonist's advice - linux_devil
http://www.zenpencils.com/comic/128-bill-watterson-a-cartoonists-advice/

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aculver
Just to avoid any confusion: The _words_ are Bill Watterson's. The artwork is
Gavin Aung Than's, although clearly a homage to Calvin and Hobbes. What a
beautiful combination!

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jwn
Indeed, I'm getting all nostalgic just looking at the artwork. Damn I miss
Calvin and Hobbes.

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pimeys
This whole thing, how most of the people in Reddit or Hacker News loves C&H,
is kind of amazing. I love the comic when I was a kid and now I adore it. It
really touches me, the characters and the ideas. And now I see the comic every
day when I browse the internet...

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jianshen
It's an interesting contrast to Jim Davis's Garfield, which was created
primarily for commercial licensing.

[http://www.slate.com/blogs/quora/2013/03/26/is_garfield_supp...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/quora/2013/03/26/is_garfield_supposed_to_be_funny.html)

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Arjuna
This is an excellent read entitled, _The Cheapening of the Comics_. It was a
speech given in 1989 by Bill Watterson. In it, he discusses his thoughts on
merchandising, the business aspects and details of licensing, etc.

[http://web.archive.org/web/20060210115506/http://hobbes.ncsa...](http://web.archive.org/web/20060210115506/http://hobbes.ncsa.uiuc.edu/comics.html)

The above speech provides a lot of insight as to why he answered the following
interview question the way that he did [1]:

Q: What led you to resist merchandising Calvin and Hobbes?

A: For starters, I clearly miscalculated how popular it would be to show
Calvin urinating on a Ford logo... Actually, I wasn't against all
merchandising when I started the strip, but each product I considered seemed
to violate the spirit of the strip, contradict its message, and take me away
from the work I loved. If my syndicate had let it go at that, the decision
would have taken maybe 30 seconds of my life.

[1]
[http://www.andrewsmcmeel.com/calvinandhobbes/index.html/pw_w...](http://www.andrewsmcmeel.com/calvinandhobbes/index.html/pw_watterson.html)

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Delmania
Personally, this message speaks to me. I wish I could stay at home, write
great software and be more active in the raising of my daughters. But when
you're the primary breadwinner and benefits provider, it gets a lot more
difficult.

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socialist_coder
Everything is difficult if you don't care enough. If you truly cared about
writing your own software and taking a more active role in parenting, you
would figure out a way to do it.

edit- I practice what I preach and am currently bootstrapping my own startup.
I was able to move to Germany though where I don't have to pay an exorbitant
amount for health care for me, my wife, or my daughter (who has a medical
condition and would probably have bankrupted us had we stayed in the US). I
readily admit that doing this type of thing in the US is infinitely harder
because of health care.

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guspe
>Everything is difficult if you don't care enough.

I don't agree with that. Some things are hard and have nothing to do with how
much effort you put into it. It's a common misconception that people who
succeed are those who care (or who had enough will power). There's much more
to life than that, I think.

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socialist_coder
I didn't say if you care enough that it becomes easy.

To truly achieve something difficult (such as leaving a high paying career to
focus on your hobby + family) you usually need to really want to do it and
have a good plan on how to do it. You need both. Motivation + Perspiration.

I practice what I preach and am currently bootstrapping my own startup. I was
able to move to Germany though where I don't have to pay an exorbitant amount
for health care for me, my wife, or my daughter (who has a medical condition
and would probably have bankrupted us had we stayed in the US). I readily
admit that doing this type of thing in the US is infinitely harder because of
health care.

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foobarbazqux
I saw this posted by some artist friends of mine. I think it makes sense in
that context. I'm not sure what this has to do with startups in the Paul
Graham sense though, except to say that you shouldn't do one, because the
entire goal of a startup is to kill yourself working and sell out for
megabucks. What matters is the exit, the IPO, the aquihire, the valuation, and
the traction.

If anything, it's an argument for lifestyle businesses over startups.

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billnguyen
i miss calvin and hobbes.

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DizzyDoo
I love Calvin and Hobbes, and respect Bill Watterson but the following just is
not true: "Watterson sacrificed millions (probably hundreds of millions) of
dollars by never licensing and merchandising Calvin and Hobbes."

Sure, you cannot buy a licensed mug with Hobbes on it like you can with
Garfield or Snoopy, but Watterson has surely made millions on the many book
collections of his work. And book volumes are certainly merchandising.

Absolutely, he has given up the lucrative money that other cartoonists like
Jim Davis have achieved by licensing/merchandising anything/anyhow, and still
more by ending the comic after 'only' 10 years, but it's probably an easier
decision to forgo the tackiness when the books have done as well as they have.

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aculver
No. Book volumes are _not_ certainly merchandising. Book volumes are selling
_his_ work, which was amazing.

His argument against the licensing (as I understand it) was that letting
_other people_ license it and create derivative works (e.g. mugs, shirts, and
other merchandise) would dilute the integrity of Calvin and Hobbes by removing
them from their context in his work.

This was something he had to fight for and I'm glad he did, because his work
maintains the same potency and impact it had originally, having not been
diluted by cheap merchandising over time.

This is truly remarkable. Unlike almost every other cartoon or comic character
ever, there are no "good old days" or "golden years" with Calvin and Hobbes.
There's just Calvin and Hobbes. 10 years of amazing work, and nothing else.

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bluedino
Unfortunately, it's so easy to print whatever the heck you want on a t shirt
or a cup or sticker, so there's plenty of cheap C&H merchandise out there.

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Refefer
For me, knowing they are unsanctioned keeps the memories of reading calvin and
hobbes completely pure: this isn't them as they were intended to be, but
bastardized facsimiles for the purpose commercial gain. It's somewhat
poignant; there were many a C&H comic concerning the evils of advertising and
marketing - to see subject to it as well completes the message quit
succinctly.

