Hey can someone tell me about those “Calvin peeing” stickers? What’s the deal with 'em? I first started seeing them with Calvin peeing on racing car numbers. Now I see them showing Calvin as a girl (no, not Suzie Derkins) praying in front of a crucifix. WHAT?!
Can someone explain this bizarre social phenomenon to me?
I’m not sure exactly what you’re looking for, but I can tell you that they’re all unauthorized. Bill Watterson has never approved any Calvin and Hobbes merchandise, least of all truck decals.
How are these still produced? You’d think in this age of litigation, BW could get a C&D PDQ.
I live where the sign says, and I see em’ very frequently on trucks and cars, with Calvin peeing at any number of things.
Against who? Some guy cranking them out in his garage who will have ten other guys take his place as soon as he’s stopped? C&D’s against small-scale guys like this are like cutting off heads of a hydra.
All the people making these stickers should be castrated and beaten with rubber hoses. If a person making these stickers is female, I propose de-nipplification as an alternative to castration.
i second neuroman.
Okay, real quick like: The stickers you refer to are cut from vinyl stock, using a computer-driven plotter with a small knife. Sign shops, among others, use this sort of device to make easy, quick, stick-on lettering for various signs.
Scan a pic of something, make a few adjustments in a graphics program, import it to the plotter software, insert the roll of whatever flavor vinyl or plastic sticker stock you want, press “go”.
You can walk in with a rough pencil drawing, and walk out in less than an hour with the completed sticker. Size is limited only by your wallet and the physical dimensions of the raw stock.
Years ago, somebody somewhere wanted to publicly display his derision at some item or device or other, and had one of these shops (there’s literally a million places that can do this nationwide) and so either he or the sign shop ginned up a low-res pic of Calvin urinating on that particular object.
I’m fairly certain the first few were of the ubiquitous “Ford Vs. Chevy” argument- the stocker on the Ford depicted Calvin urinating on a Chevy logo, and vice-versa.
This eventually broadened into including Dodge, Jeep and various foreign car makes, then pictures of Saddam Hussein or Bill Clinton, then short messages like “Mean People” or even “Prop. 24”.
Eventually it transmuted into a Calvinlike girl figure squatting over the same logos, got sidetracked into showing the kid with a squirgun rather than urinating, and corrupted into the aformentioned religious iconography.
As for suing, it’s more decentralized than KaZaa- Watterson would have to attempt to sue individual sign shops for one or two supposed copyright violations, and he’d have to prove the image was his and wrongfully used. The time he could have done even that is long past- the stickers predate the cancellation of C&H.
Personally, they’ve been done to death. The kid’s pissed on anything and everything, they can be found on every sort of vehicle from ricers to 4X4s to BMWs, and they’re all the frikkin’ same!
Show some imagination, people! ('Course, about the only thing left for him to piss on is himself. Be kind of an interesting yin-yang thing- Calvin pissing on a “Calvin Pissing” sticker, which is pissing on the kid pissing on the sticker, which is…)
I saw a commercial yesterday that showed a Dodge pickup pull up somewhere and stops. Cut to the back window with a Dodge ram sticker in the lower right corner. An animated, Calvinesque figure walks over to the sticker with an evil grin on his face and turns his back to the viewer. He reaches down and obviously starts to unzip his fly. The ram sticker comes to animated life, and butts the Calvinesque character out of the frame.
The little boy character was different enough to obviously not be Calvin, but close enough that anybody seeing the commercial knew what stupid stickers the ad was mocking.
Here are some articles and ‘fan art’ on the subject.
No guarantees, of course, as to how long these links will work:
http://www.lumberjackonline.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2002/04/17/3cbe283ee8e11
Can anybody explain what that sticker is supposed to mean? Praying turns you into a girl? God makes your dick fall off?
I was told by a usually quasi reliable source (my son) that not only has Bill Waterson not put out any Calvin & Hobbs stuff himself he doesn’t care if you do. Seems he’s against the idea of trademarking or whatever it is that you have in these situations.
Walt Disney on the other hand once sued the Boy Scouts for using Mickey.
Even after they offered to change the logo and put Mickeys pants back on.
Err…or was that something else?
That could well be, but that’s not the impression that I got reading a foreward to one of the books by Watterson himself. He adamantly fought merchandising by the people who produced his strip and anyone else. I got the impression that this constant battle drained him and led to his getting out of the business. It seemed to me that if he didn’t fight these violations, it was more out of weary resignation than out of acceptance.
I always thought the Calvin praying sticker had him in a biblical robe, not a dress.
I’m starting to see stickers with Ralph Wiggum picking his nose.
Ever since I first noticed these proliferating, I’ve dreamed of owning the following:
A sticker of Calvin peeing on another Calvin, who in turn is peeing on the first Calvin. Sort of like an Ourobouros, who eats his own tail.
Anyone want to make one for me?
I am a HUGE admirer of Bill Watterson, his skill, wit, artistry, writing and anti-commercialization values. I think that the peeing Calvin is offensive to him. It certainly is to me.
I’ve had fantasies about traveling the country with a hammer smashing the window of every auto I could find that displays one of these stickers.
But then I realized it’s really not a big deal in the large scheme of things.
But I still hate those things!!
Please propose it in the Pit.
Thank you.
