Have you ever imagined Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin and Hobbes, drawing his own cartoon version of Star Wars? Brian Kesinger, an artist who works at Walt Disney Animation Studios, has tackled on this challenge.
BuzzFeed reports that Kesinger drew inspiration from the Star Wars: The Force Awakens movie for a Calvin and Hobbes-style comic project. Thus far, he has posted six pieces on his Instagram account.
Here’s more from The Huffington Post: “While this particular series has been extremely popular on social media, Kesinger has done various other mashups including those between “Star Wars” and “Adventure Time,” as well as “Peanuts” and “Big Hero 6.” He said he’s always been drawn to blending different characters and concepts — old and new — together into one, unique realm.” (via USA Today)
Earlier this year, the selection of Bill Watterson as the Grand Prix winner at the Angoulême comics festival created quite a stir. The winner is traditionally the “grand marshal” of the whole festival, helping plan exhibits and appearing at official events. (Or, as in the case of Willem, last ear’s winner, hanging out at Le Chat Noir until 1 am with everyone else.) It seemed a bit of a stretch for Watterson, but was it impossible?
Although the once reclusive Calvin & Hobbes creator hasn’t exactly turned into Taylor Swift, he makes occasional semi public appearances and is way more accessible in interviews. (If you call once or twice a year accessible.) When the win was announced, Watterson’s editor Lee Salem said he would try to tell him how wonderful Angoulême is, so maybe Watterson would make an exception for this so not a comic-con event?
However, an interview at the French language 20 Minutes website has not only unveiled Watterson’s poster for the festival but confirmed that the poster will be the full extent of his participation. The traditional exhibit of Watterson’s work will be based on the exhibit at OSU. According to the brief but news-packed interview, Watterson found the poster an interesting challenge, but did not use his Calvin and Hobbes characters because he doesn’t believe in using them to promote anything—even comics. But according to Google Translate, Watterson says “In this sense, I hope I have managed to express both my work and comics in general. And to pay tribute to what makes this medium so pleasant to read.”
I make no secret of my incredible affection for
Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson, who on the whole is a pretty reclusive author, but when he speaks he makes it count.
So two great links to share. In the first, Fast Company pulled
four great principles on creativity from his interviews in the movie
Stripped.And in the second, Slate reprinted the cartoon blog Zen Pencil's cartoon rendering of part of Bill Watterson's commencement speech at Kenyon College about
creating a life that's in tune with your values.
Just about everything I've learned in life seems like it came from
Calvin and Hobbes, from the power of imagination to our powerlessness on some days when even lucky rocketship underpants can't help. Bill Watterson is a national treasure.
Clickhole, the Onion’s answer to Buzzfeed and Clickhole, has posted an audacious NSFW video parody, “If You Grew Up With ‘Calvin and Hobbes,’ You Need to Watch This Now.” Spoilers below for those of you who aren’t already in custody haven’t seen it yet:
Clickhole’s video of Calvin and Hobbes having sex pretty much nukes anything an art critic has ever described as transgressive, but in so doing it also raises a serious legal concern. As you may recall, under 18 U.S. Code Sec. 1466A, U.S. law banning child pornography is not limited to visual depictions of real children. This has already led to prosecutions for possession of comics or cartoons – in fact, animated child sex is reportedly being used as, well, clickbait by law enforcement.
Could watching the Clickhole Calvin and Hobbes video get you sent to jail?
Let’s go exploring!
One key aspect of current U.S. law — setting aside other countries that may have more expansive prohibitions – is that it reflects an adaptive response to the Supreme Court’s conclusion that earlier versions were too broad in ways that violated the First Amendment. As a result Section 1466A only bans non-realistic visual depictions such as the Calvin and Hobbes video if they are obscene or lack serious artistic, literary, political or scientific value.
Here, in brief, is why Congress went with that language. In a series of decisions several decades ago, the Supreme Court came up with a standard for obscenity that, it believes, passes constitutional muster. The standard is known as the Miller test for determining obscenity, and it has three key components: the material appeals to prurient interest, is patently offensive and lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value. By echoing this language, Congress hoped – and so far has mostly succeeded – in establishing a standard for visual depictions of minors in drawings, cartoons, sculptures or paintings that would survive a constitutional challenge.
1466A(a)(2) and (b)(2) ban, among other things, graphic images of a minor engaging in actual or simulated bestiality that lack serious artistic, literary, political or scientific value. Before we get to the question of value, it’s worth noting that the statute goes on to define “graphic” to refer to images in which “a viewer can observe any part of the genitals or pubic area of any depicted person or animal.” In essence, these sections take a shortcut past the prurient and patently offensive elements of the obscenity test, which are determined by community standards, by providing an absolute bright-line standard.
Watch the Clickhole Calvin and Hobbes video carefully and you’ll see that it arguably does not portray the genitals or pubic area of either character – the very sort of thing that a strategic company lawyer might tell a company producing such a video to do if it was determined to post it. That’s not a slam-dunk conclusion, though. Calvin is drawn in a way that resembles the iconic “Love Is …” one-panel cartoon, the product of a time before contemporary anti-child-porn laws as well as a strip that does not depict minors in sexual situations, at least in authorized versions.
Section 1466A(a)(1) and (b)(1) are somewhat more expansive. These provisions prohibit an obscene depiction of sexually explicit conduct, which extends to simulated bestiality and other sexual activity whether or not the genitals or pubic area appear.
What makes determining whether material is obscene particularly hard to determine is that the test looks to community standards – technically in regard to determining whether material appeals to the prurient interest or is patently offensive, but the community sensibility also tends to come into play in assessing whether a reasonable person would find that the material lacks socially redeeming value. This applies not only to a federal statute such as Section 1466A, but any state anti-obscenity or anti-child pornography laws under which the Calvin and Hobbes cartoon could be assessed.
This reliance on community standards has had the effect of balkanizing U.S. obscenity law. What is obscene in one jurisdiction can be perfectly legal in another. Case in point: the Christopher Handley case, which involved a manga collector. The Iowa district judge in that case concluded that 1466(a)(2) and (b)(2) are unconstitutional, but the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which covers Florida, Georgia, and Alabama, expressly disagreed.
In short, if the science of law is, to quote Oliver Wendell Holmes, an art of prediction, the current constitutional definition of obscenity is a Magic 8 Ball.
Which also brings us to 18 USC 2252C, a related provision that prohibits knowingly embedding words or digital images into the source code of a website with the intent (a) to deceive a person into viewing material constituting obscenity or (b) to deceive a minor into viewing material harmful to minors on the Internet. If one is dealing with a judge or jury likely to conclude that the Calvin and Hobbes cartoon is obscene, there is an equally significant risk of being found guilty of using misleading words (the clickbait headline) and images (the still frame before playing) to trick either an adult or a minor into clicking play.
So to answer the question of whether Clickhole’s Calvin and Hobbes Cartoon is illegal, I’d have to say it depends – on the jurisdiction, on the prosecutor, the judge, the jury and the case presented by the defendant’s lawyers. And again, the rest of the world is not bound by our First Amendment jurisprudence and its definition of obscene, so there could be a greater risk elsewhere. There’s a substantial possibility, of course, that nothing will ever happen to Clickhole or any viewers of this video, but it’s not a risk that many lawyers would want their clients to take.
Yep you head me right. This weekend the Billy Ireland Cartoon Museum and LIbrary in Columbus Ohio will open two incredible shows,
The Irresistible Force Meets The Immovable Object: A Richard Thompson Retrospective and Exploring Calvin And Hobbes and in advance of the show Jenny Robb has interviewed Bill Watterson and Caitlin McGurk has interviewed Richard Thompson. You’ll obviously want to read the whole thing. Watterson, in an extremely rare interview, revisits his greatest creation:
JR: It’s been almost 30 years since Calvin and Hobbes launched, and almost 20 since it ended. How did it feel to revisit the strip for this exhibition?
BW: Oh, it’s fairly weird. There’s a sort of jet lag when you time-travel to your own past.
He also talks about the current state of cartooning, wondering if any can find an audience with so much competition but pointing out “The gatekeepers are gone, so the prospect for new and different voices is exciting. Or at least it will be if anyone reads them. And it will be even more exciting if anyone pays for them. It’s hard to charge admission without a gate.”
Richard Thompson calls the end of print “sad and confusing” but adds “Comics are, as they say, blowing up. The chance for invention is great but the chance for moneymaking is small. Right now creators are pretty much screwed.”
SO perhaps look at the dual show as the last celebration of an artistic and financial era era of comic strips now as lost as vaudeville and radio drama. OR to be more upbeat, a celebration of two amazing artists who have unforgettably touched our hearts.
The opening for the exhibits is tomorrow night. We’ll be awaiting the tweets and blogs posts eagerly.
This is a great weekend for comics in Columbus. There’s also a Lilli Carré exhibits at the Columbus Museum of Art.
While the odds are still low on him showing up to fulfill his duties as Grand Prix winner, Bill Watterson is slightly less reclusive of late than he has been for most of the 19 years since he quite Calvin and Hobbes. For instance he has drawn the poster for the film STRIPPED, a documentary about comic strip artists which also features an interview with Watterson. The piece is billed as Watterson’s first cartoon in 19 years (he’s shown a painting since then, a contribution to Project Cul-de-sac.)
Comic strips fans were probably already on board to see the movie, directed by Dave Kellett and Fred Schroeder, but the art by Wawtterson won’t hurt. Other creators interviewed in the film include Chris Hastings (Dr. McNinja), Anthony Clark (Nedroid), Danielle Corsetto (Girls With Slingshots), Dylan Meconis (Family Man), Kate Beaton (Hark, a Vagrant!), Greg Evans (Luann), Jeff Keane (The Family Circus), Jeff Smith (Bone), Jim Davis (Garfield), Scott Kurtz (PvP), Meredith Gran (Octopus Pie), Ryan North (Dinosaur Comics), Bill Amend (Foxtrot), Matt Inman (The Oatmeal), Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins (Penny Arcade), Cathy Guisewite (Cathy) and Mort Walker (Beetle Bailey).
Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson granted an extremely rare interview to Mental Floss this month.
After years without speaking to the press, Watterson admitted that he has no plans to adapt his beloved comic strip: “There’s no upside for me in adapting it.” Here’s more from the new interview:
Obviously the role of comics is changing very fast. On the one hand, I don’t think comics have ever been more widely accepted or taken as seriously as they are now. On the other hand, the mass media is disintegrating, and audiences are atomizing. I suspect comics will have less widespread cultural impact and make a lot less money. I’m old enough to find all this unsettling, but the world moves on.
continued…
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
On Monday, July 25, Sue Fondrie was announced as the grand prize winner of the 2011 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. As a longtime fan (and occasional perpetrator) of spectacularly bad writing, I blogged that sucker up and, to my surprise, Sue dropped by with a comment. Medium story short: She agreed to satisfy my curiosity by answering a few questions.
Sue, I loved and admired your amazing sentence. Congratulations on the sweet, sweet victory. Tell us a little bit about yourself. What do you do for a living?
Is this victory sweet? I think it soured people on writing, really.
Not true! I think it takes a real appreciation of language to create something that egregiously bad. Just look at the popularity of the contest. We are delighted and charmed. Seriously: Great job.
For a living, I work with future teachers as an associate professor of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. I teach the secondary English methods courses, the middle school education course, supervise student teachers in English language arts, and generally help students become teachers.
Let us gaze in awe once again upon your award-winning sentence:
“Cheryl’s mind turned like the vanes of a wind-powered turbine, chopping her sparrow-like thoughts into bloody pieces that fell onto a growing pile of forgotten memories.”
How long did it take you to craft it? I can’t believe something that over-cooked could have been concocted in a first draft.
Don’t tell anyone, but I cranked it out in a few minutes, initially. Then, as I always recommend to my students, I let it sit for a few weeks and then came back to work on it some more. Hmm, maybe I should’ve let it sit longer . . .
Have you entered the contest in previous years? What appeals to you about bad writing?
I’ve never entered before, although I’ve been following it for almost 20 years. What’s not to love about bad writing? It makes my own mediocre efforts seem acceptable.
You are an associate professor at a university, the land of ivory towers, usually a bastion for writing that is dry, tedious, filled with arcane language. The academic world has it’s own brand of bad. But your purple prose draws inspiration from . . . where, exactly? Can you site any specific sources? Just a hunch, but have you been reading the Twilight series?
If you read any of my academic writing, you’d see that dry and tedious describes it perfectly. I credit my Bulwer-Lytton win to being raised in a household of people who love a good pun and like to play with language. We often had long pun-filled contests on a central theme. And like any good teacher educator, I’ve read the Twilight series.
Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin and Hobbes,
Maybe half a year ago I mentioned that Ms. Lucy Knisley had created a cartoon poster for the first four Harry Potter books. Now with the final Potter movie coming out, the posters are at long last complete. They follow the plots of the books, not the films, but the look of the characters can be amusingly cinematic at times. And for the record, if I were a tattoo-minded dame, I would adore getting this image of Luna Lovegood and her pop.
But that’s not really my top news story of the day. How could it be? No the top news story is that it is once again time for the Summer Blog Blast Tour. Twice a year a cadre of bloggers for child and teen books gather together to interview some of the luminaries in the field. Chasing Ray has the round-up, so seek ‘em out and read ‘em up. I know I will.
When I lived in London for a time (it was like a little Intro to New York) I would periodically buy the newest issue of Time Out London and find interesting places to visit. One day the mag highlighted a toy museum. It was called The Museum of Childhood and it was fascinating. I was too intimidated to take any pictures, though, so I sort of forgot that I even went. Years have passed and I see that author/illustrator David Lucas has also been to that same museum and he has written about it in the post What do TOYS Think of Us? Stick around for the moment when he starts talking about panpsychism. Looking at all those ragamuffin bits of much loved cloth and felt reminds me of my library’s own original Winnie-the-Pooh. He is, after all, of the British persuasion.
- Yay, Sunday Brunch! Over at Collecting Children’s Books my partner in writing crime (we’re doing a Candlewick book with Jules from 7-Imp) has a delightful post that is well worth your time. My favorite parts include the childhood of a future Brat Packer, a reason why Erin E. Moulton’s Flutter is unique, and a vote for “The Year’s Creepiest YA Novel.” Hooked yet?
- Marci, this is for you. Remember how we were trying to figure out how one would go about creating Quidditch croquet? Well . . .
Hat tip to Daily Cartoonist and Gizmodo and MAD Magazine.
His act is getting kinda old. Must suck not being able to enjoy something as fabulous as Angoulême.
Yeah, it’s pretty disgusting that he won’t exploit properties he created as marketing tools. And that he won’t give in and just do whatever people tell him too, even a festival as fabulous as this one. And when he could have declined or not made any comment, instead he created this new piece of work in his own style that in no way could possibly represent the thing it was created to represent. Standing by your own principles is a pretty gross concept in this day and age.
I meant by staying home and not attending the fest, chuckles. I really don’t give a crap that he’s a recluse. More power to him. I am, however, getting tired of reading he’s a recluse and that it’s somehow a purer state of being.
Nobody made you click on the headline and read about him.
I don’t see anything about “a purer state of being” in this article. geez.
he’s reclusive because he wants to be. if you don’t like reading about it, like chris says, don’t click.
the poster made me smile! love his style.
Crowds turn me into a twitching sack of nerves. Maybe Watterson has a similar issue. People read all sorts of things into my “reclusiveness”, but it certainly isn’t anything about “purity”. It’s about doing what I need to do, instead of what other people think I should.
And yeah, it kinda does suck not being able to enjoy something as fabulous as Angoulême (or Bent-Con, or APE, or DragonCon …) Thanks for being so … sympathetic?
No, I wasn’t being a smartass there. It really MUST suck. I feel bad for the guy!
Sure you meant it that way.