Comment by whartung | Hacker News Reader

Comment by whartung | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

All that said, IMHO, having Peanuts characters on MetLife ads, or visiting Camp Snoopy doesn’t cheapen or weaken the original strips.

“Merry Christmas Charlie Brown” and “Great Pumpkin” are both pure, done by Schulz rather than handed off. It’s Schulz bringing his work to life how he wanted it done.

Did he have Guaraldi music in his head when he created the characters? Dunno. Do you think it really changed them for him? Dunno either, but seems unlikely.

I have the 4 volume C & H boxed set. I was there, mostly, reading it daily from the beginning to the end. I’m pretty sure I have the final strip saved from when it was published in a box somewhere. Mad respect for Watterson, his work, his vision.

That said, I’d be first in line for a Hobbes doll. I had a pirate Spaceman Spiff sticker on the back of my motorcycle helmet.

I don’t think an Opus the Penguin doll had any real impact on Breatheds work, but at the same time he stopped the licensing, so who knows.

The work stands on its own. I’ve never read LoTR. I don’t know if it’s impacted how people view the books. I do know that I’ve watched the trilogy at least once a year since its release.

Calvin is Calvin. Opus is Opus. Snoopy is Snoopy. And Waterson will do as he likes with his work. I just think his work is stronger than he, perhaps, thinks it is.

> doesn’t cheapen or weaken the original

I'm not a huge objector to the continued outchurn of the Star Wars or Star Trek or MCU franchises, for example, because there's an academic sense in which the existence of bad stuff doesn't negate the existence of good stuff.

BUT...

I think restraint and scarcity can make things more special. Food is more enjoyable when we are hungry, absence makes the heart grow fonder, etc..

Narratively, it's good to leave some questions unanswered. A successful franchise leaves the fans wanting more, but actually giving them more can leave us over-satiated and uninterested.

There's no more magic or mystery left when every character has had their own mini-series to fully flesh-out every aspect of their arc.

It's not only about the sanctity of the work, but the opportunity for other artists to earn a living and for the audience to avoid monoculture. Consumerism facilitates a winner-take-all system where one creator's voice overrides all others. It's better for all when a number of moderately successful artists can have artistic dialogue with a larger number of audience segments, even when moderated by commerce.

It's pulp. People like pulp. I do too.

>All that said, IMHO, having Peanuts characters on MetLife ads, or visiting Camp Snoopy doesn’t cheapen or weaken the original strips.

I'd say it very much does.

The focus on Snoopy itself is when the strip "jumped the shark" (here's a take, https://kotaku.com/how-snoopy-killed-peanuts-1724269473 ).

Of course Schulz dilluted it decades before the end of the strip, getting all too into repeatition and mass market concessions.

If I write a book and it's good, me doing other stuff later, even with the same characters doesn't change the original book.

You want to feel like the subject is yours, and if it's too widespread, lots of people will learn about it, in an "inpure way" (scoff, learning about an amazing comic strip in a movie) and so it cheapens it. Only with this "hipster" view on things you could say that. I think it's impossible to cheapen something without changing it.

If the first edition was cool and the second edition changes the language for sensitivities for example, that can cheapen it, because it actually changed it. McDonald's offering a toy of a character from the first edition, changes nothing.

>If I write a book and it's good, me doing other stuff later, even with the same characters doesn't change the original book.

Only technically. In that the actual printed words wont change.

In how it's perceived in the culture, how it's read, how new readers relate to its characters, what it's seen as the start of, and so on, it does retroactively change the original.

Same how the horrendous 8th season of GoT tainted the previous seasons too. Now it's a journey to a pointless ending - and many people who haven't seen it are unwilling to get into it because they know that. Even someone rewatching the first season, now has a bad taste knowing the later plot of Danny for example, or how various things shown as prominent in the first seasons (the mysterious signs of the deathwalkers, or even the death walkers themselves) play no significant role, or are just skipped over later.

I'm reading Good Omens again right now, and I just got to the "whole damn sea full of brains" scene, and I keep hearing it in Doctor Who's voice. Plus the whole shipping reading from S1/S2 kinds bleeds back.

It’s like a divorce vs becoming widowed.

Your understanding of the events that occurred are recontextualised and your feelings are forever changed.

Perhaps we as an audience enjoyed the conceit that Schulz was writing those comics because he loved the characters and that alone.

I don’t think I have to say anything more than “Game of Thrones” to prove you wrong in most people’s minds. The last episodes sullied the whole series, and I have no longer any desire at all to revisit any of the first seasons, even though I enjoyed them a lot when I watched them originally.

The archived version of that kotaku article has the original strips that are missing from the current version: https://web.archive.org/web/20150815184327/https://kotaku.co...

The sweatshops, landfills, and oceans full of Peanuts trash and conspicuous absence of Calvin and Hobbes junk says otherwise.

Regardless of their authenticity, without C&H there would be no bumper stickers of Calvin urinating.

Ugh, what an upsetting thing. Not only is it intellectual theft, but its crassness goes completely against the spirit of the comic strip.

Calvin was always a crass kid. That was half the point of the character!

My favorite Peanuts ripoff is a ditty from Jeff Gilbert's "Brain Pain" circa 1989 or so:

    kids: Trick or treat!
    kid 1: I got a popcorn ball!
    kid 2: I got a fudge ball!
    kid 3: I got a pack of gum!
    Charlie Brown: I gotta rock!
    <heavy metal ensues>

Gawd I miss Jeff Gilbert's show. He should have been syndicated nationally, rather than just a local thing.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com