Item — HN Reader

ALL of them, seriously? Never missed one or went on vacation and the paper got thrown out (assuming that was the predominant medium)? Can all of you populate a spreadsheet by heart and argue in good faith with due accuracy as to each one out of the likely 1,000s?

Sorry but I doubt that. But even so, it still doesn't lend itself to your point. You're saying 1,000s are perfection but + one new strip would immediately or at least in some historically-tainting way destroy everything? Is everything really that fragile?

Edit: 2 0s

2 comments

There are about 3150 Calvin and Hobbes strips.

For comparison, there are about 900 Star Trek episodes (including the animated ones).

I don't find it hard to believe someone can know all of them, because I am one of those people for Star Trek, and comic strips are so much shorter. I couldn't populate a spreadsheet from scratch, but name an episode and reference the plot somehow, I'm fairly sure I'll remember it and be able to fill in some details without looking it up.

> Never missed one or went on vacation and the paper got thrown out (assuming that was the predominant medium)?

Also they're all available at https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/ - I read through the whole thing a few years ago.

K thats my bad on the quantity, that was reckless but it doesn't change the nature of my conjecture and you avoided the primary question: does n + 1 = 0 with regard to an arbitrary number of "new" comics/works? What if there was a "vault" of undiscovered or arbitrarily retained C&H works? You're seriously gonna say "nah" to that?

Edit: I edited my response, thanks for correcting me on that point. There really was no excuse for me to not pull that up real fast

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Yes, all of them. They might’ve missed newspapers, but they read them in published collections and re-read them in the complete omnibus. I’m confident they’d recognize a fake strip. Your general point about comics might hold but C&H is something else.

As for being displeased with continued low quality publishing, yes, that would be dismaying. If it continued on and was really good, obviously that wouldn’t be but Watterson’s point was that the odds of that working out well were low, even if he tried to retain creative control. I understand from your other posts that quality isn’t important to you once you’ve started following the characters; fans of C&H are not like you.

Can you give your thoughts on the notion of how hypothetical "lost episodes" or "vault" would be rejected consistent with your suggestion that the corpus of readers all feel exactly as strong as you on the matter even if it literally meant that there was a risk of rejecting precious canon material simply because you all consider C&H "done" and have no room for additional content?

I realize this example is super contrived and I legitimately hope I'm not mischaracterizing your fundamental position but I don't know you've really given me a basis to understand how you or the typical fan would approach such a dilemma...and it seems relevant to the overall questions of at least authenticity, continuity, currency etc that are inherent to the broader discussion despite the fact its likely never gonna happen.

You are mischaracterizing the position. It's not "Calvin and Hobbes is done," it's "Calvin and Hobbes is Bill Waterson and he's done with it." If lost strips came out or he announced a continuation, fans would be excited. If some MBA pit got their claws on it and made their own continuation, fans would hate it.

This is why Watterson's new book is at the front of every bookstore in the country, despite having nothing to do with C&H and being impossible to market. Despite the ongoing poison of franchises, people do still care about stories from authors they trust.

Thank you, I understand and actually sort of agree with you now that I understand where you are coming from. I feel very similarly and perhaps I was not dilligent enough in fleshing out that I also want the author/creative force behind it to be involved and for it to more or less continue at their pleasure.

My issue was merely with the notion that something that was "finished" or ended previouslu could never be continued or elaborated on due to what I perceived as an obsession with the "sanctity" of a completed or discontinued creative work.

I don't know if this resonates at all but I feel the deep need to keep things open and I just can't thumb my nose when a series I enjoyed offers to continue that experience and pick back up where "we" last left off and that I so enjoyed prior.

I get attached to the franchise/show/whatever and crew and its hard to accept the notion that at some point they go away with any finality or that they will necessarily remain frozen in time where nobody can move forward or I don't feel like we can grow and abstractly interact anymore.

This probably sounds really stupid and maudlin but there you have it. I'm sorry and I'm glad we could get to this point :)

I don't think I was explicit enough in saying I also want the author to be running the show or at least heavily involved and that is usually (in my mind) a useful heuristic or proxy for quality in some sense if they have self-respect and are interestef not only in capitalizing on the work but also to see their creation actually come to life in live action or whatever the format and be enjoyable for themselves, their families, and the rest of their audience (us).

I do care about quality and fortunately with the smaller typical season size nowadays (8-10 episodes) it seems like that flows pretty naturally. Having to write like 30 episodes per season is insane , I'm glad how its going now although it necessarily results in longer turnarounnd times. But its worth the wait :)