He saw this as "selling out his own creation," and obstinately refused to do so.Īfter two syndicates had rejected Calvin and Hobbes, Universal Press Syndicate offered Watterson a contract with the caveat that they would have all the exploitation rights to Calvin and Hobbes into the next century. It would no longer be his strip, as his only job would be to only do whatever it took to keep his character's profitable. His major issue with licensing, however, is the fact that if he agree to license, he would corrupt his strip's integrity. Watterson took great pride in the fact that he drew, inked, and colored the strip by himself, and did not want to just approve someone else's work. His third reason was the fact that he would have to be in charge of a bunch of assistants who would do all the work of creating the licensed products. His second reason was his belief that the created merchandise rarely respected how the original media worked, sacrificing a lot of multi-dimensional subtleties for the one-dimensional needs of the product. Watterson's first reason for not wanting to license was his belief that saturating the market with Calvin and Hobbes merchandise would make the public grow inevitably bored and irritated, reducing the value of the strip itself. Watterson shared some of his issues with licensing in The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book. Watterson's Reasons For Refusing to License
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