A while back someone here wondered why I disliked Garfield. Well, here ya go. Jim Davis is the Anti-Watterson.

[Kupek]

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '><b>Link:</b> <a href="http://slate.msn.com/id/2102299">http:/ ... 2102299</a>

A while back someone here wondered why I disliked Garfield. Well, here ya go. Jim Davis is the Anti-Watterson.</div>

[Julius Seeker]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I just dislike the idea of the movie because I don't see any relation between it and the Garfield I know, other than species and name.</div>

[Flip]

<div style='font: 12pt "Cooper Black"; text-align: left; '>I admit that i do (or did, when i was younger) like the TV cartoon specials, they were good.</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>They -were- good. (At least my childhood brain is telling me that...) My dad and I would watch them, as well as Real Ghostbusters, on Satudays.</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '><i>Davis admitted to spending only 13 or 14 hours a week writing and drawing the strip, compared to 60 hours a week doing promotion and licensing.

Garfield's origins were so mercantile that it's fair to say he never sold out—he never had any integrity to put on the auction block to begin with. But today Davis spends even less time on the strip than he used to—between three days and a week each month.</i>

It reminded me of the reducing of the dictionary words in 1984. Try to perfect the art of get a usable comic strip in less and less time. He may even figure out how to get it down to a good solid day per month, cranking in several strips.</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>BTW, I don't catch your reference with Watterson. Who is he?

<b>Davis admitted to spending only 13 or 14 hours a week writing and drawing the strip, compared to 60 hours a week doing promotion and licensing.

Garfield's origins were so mercantile that it's fair to say he never sold out—he never had any integrity to put on the auction block to begin with. But today Davis spends even less time on the strip than he used to—between three days and a week each month.</b>

It reminded me of the reducing of the dictionary words in 1984. Try to perfect the art of get a usable comic strip in less and less time. He may even figure out how to get it down to a good solid day per month, cranking in several strips.

<b>During that time, he collaborates with another cartoonist to generate ideas and rough sketches, then hands them over to Paws employees to be illustrated.

By comparison, Davis spends nearly every morning working on "concepts for new products," he writes in In Dog Years I'd Be Dead. Paws, Inc. has become a 60-employee licensing behemoth.</b>

An older Todd McFarlane? I kept picturing a scene from a G4 30-minute "documentary" on the guy. (Queue Bill Hicks: "If you're in marketing....killlll yourself.")

<b>In the late 1980s, Garfield plush toys with suction-cup feet were so popular than criminals broke into cars to steal them and sell them on the black market.</b>

Wow...man. I had no idea Garfield became bigger than God itself. Again, he's a man to completely perfect his technique to suck up as much money and "immortality" from the general public. Stock brokers have nothing on people like these because it's much more than just a numbers game. A degree in marketing is almost like a degree in psychology.</div>

[Gentz]

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>Hahaha. He IS the Anti-Watterson! That's awesome.</div>

[Gentz]

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>Yeah, the comics were good too (hell, they're still good sometimes). Garfield is a well-designed character</div>

[Gentz]

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>Yeah, the comics were good too (hell, they're still good sometimes). Garfield is a well-designed character (in that he's basically just a feline version of Snoopy)</div>

[Ishamael]

<div style='font: 14pt "Sans Serif"; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>It's kind of a ridiculous article. The author is trying to convince us that Davis is doign something wrong for earning money off of his creation...</div>

[Gentz]

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>Bill Watterson is the creator of Calvin & Hobbes. Strictly set against the commercialization/merchandising of his characters. Any C&H shirts or stickers you'll ever see are all unlicensed knock-offs.</div>

[Kupek]

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Not wrong, he's just in it to create a marketable strip, not necessarily a great one.</div>

[Kupek]

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>To emphasize Gentz's point, Watterson had huge fights with his syndicate about merchandise.</div>

[Ishamael]

<div style='font: 14pt "Sans Serif"; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>Well the author would certainly like the reader to reach that conclusion( or to assume that being a relentless marketing machine and creating a good strip are mutually exclusive ). I don't see it. And 12 figure revenues aren't generated for average things (not govt related of course. :) ).</div>

[Kupek]

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>By "great" I mean good in some artistic sense, which Garfield is most assuredly not, by the standards I use.</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>It might not be for the right reasons, but this man is a marketing genius...</div>

[Eric]

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>Blah blah blah, artist makes money off his creation, he's a sell out, whatever. Does it really matter? I still find it funny how he disses Jon on a regular basis. :P</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Aye. Tis a shame that my first decree when I rule the world is to kill all of the marketing people.</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>There are plenty of horrible creations that spawn 12 figure revenues: Backstreet Boys, Brittany Spears, Titanic, Family Circus, Windows, etc., etc., etc.</div>

[Julius Seeker]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Exactly, it doesn't matter at all. If he didn't take advantage of the market before him he would be a fool.</div>

[G-man Joe]

<div style='font: 11pt "Fine Hand"; text-align: left; '>Britney ain't horrible. I'd tap that ass if I weren't married. WHAT? She sings????</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>You and 500,000,000 other people.</div>

[Lox(this is screwed up)]

<div style='font: ; text-align: left; '>I can't dislike the guy for being a marketing genius.  I can dislike him for creating a boring, unfunny comic strip.  My love for C&H has more to do with the fact that it's hilarious and interesting than the fact that it's not mass-marketed.</div>

[Ishamael]

<div style='font: 14pt "Sans Serif"; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>That should be 9 figure incomes...Oh well...</div>