Alex Robinson's Blog, page 149
August 2, 2011
ONE HUNDREDTH EPISODE SPECTACULAR!!
We made it! It's the Very-Special 100th Episode Spectacular. We've got lots of surprises in store. Listener call-ins, announcements, a special guest, food consumption challenges… The list goes on.
Comments welcome!
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August 1, 2011
Looking for Calvin and Hobbes
I'm reading Looking for Calvin & Hobbes by Nevin Martell. It's okay but really suffers from Bill Watterson not cooperating. The author has to use a lot of secondary sources (old interviews, quotes from people he went to college with, etc.) which makes it seem really padded at points. If anything, it really made me wish someone would just collect that five or six interviews Martell extensively quotes, along with some commentary.
Anyway, the part I found most interesting was Watterson's Early Years of Bitter Struggle. He starts off as a political cartoonist and gets fired. He spends years pitching ideas to comics syndicates with no luck. The usual story. At one point when Calvin & Hobbes is finally crystalizing, the syndicate approaches him about him taking over their new Robotman strip (they'd bought the rights to the character but didn't have anyone to draw the strip). Maybe have Robotman be another one of Calvin's imaginary friends?
Obviously Watterson turned them down, which in itself is interesting. Who among us would have the nerve to make the same decision? After years of trying to get ones foot in the door I imagine most of us would probably do whatever it was the syndicate wanted. When I first started in the comics biz I think I was very fortunate that my publishers, Antarctic Press, were very hands off and let me develop Box Office Poison in whatever ways I saw fit But what if they hadn't? What if after a few issues they said "You know what, sales are terrible. Can you give Sherman superpowers?" It's easy to look back and say that I would've told them no dice and walk away but I'm not so sure.
