Northeast Ohioan Bill Watterson is an enigma to even his most ardent
fans. But author Nevin Martell claims to have pinned down the elusive
writer-illustrator in his upcoming book Looking for Calvin and
Hobbes: The Unconventional Story of Bill Watterson and His
Revolutionary Comic Strip.
“It’s a traditional biographical narrative, with an emerging
detective story and [context material about] myself,” says Martell, a
Washington, D.C.-area resident and contributing editor of music
magazine Filter. His previous books are about Dave Matthews and
Beck.
Calvin and Hobbes debuted in 1985, and over a 10-year run, it
rivaled Peanuts for most beloved and influential American comic
strip. But unlike Peanuts creator Charles Schulz, Watterson
flatly rejected all offers to cash in through merchandising — no
T-shirts, no dolls, no (authorized) stickers, no TV series, no movie.
He abruptly ended the strip in 1995, leaving a void in the funny pages.
Since signing his last strip, Watterson has been a recluse, refusing to
interpret or explain his distinct legacy and turning down most
interviews.
“Over the course of the project, I came into contact with
[Watterson] a few times,” says Martell, who remains vague on the
details. “We had some exchanges through some intermediaries … I can’t
give away the ending, but I think people will be happy with the
ending.”
Martell says the book is partly “a love letter” to Watterson’s work,
but notes that the adulation isn’t just from him. He conducted 100
interviews for the book, many of them testimony from Watterson’s peers
and the generation of artists he influenced, including Pixar
writer-director Brad Bird, novelist Jonathan Lethem and Cleveland
illustrated-novel author Harvey Pekar. Not surprisingly, all of them
are glowing.
“There’s a passage in the book where I wonder aloud whether anyone
would say anything bad about him as a cartoonist,” says Martell. The
only borderline-negative input he received was some half-hearted
grumbling about Watterson’s absence from the professional circles where
he’s worshipped. Fourteen years after the strip folded, it’s still a
presence: This year, Nickelodeon Magazine readers voted Calvin
winner of the Best Hair in Comics award. Calvin and Hobbes collections still sell more than a million copies a year worldwide. A
recent episode of Family Guy featured a Calvin &
Hobbes gag.
Martell says that the book should dispel some of the legends that
have sprung up in the void of hard information about Watterson, who
still lives in the area. For example, he says that the long-running
rumor that Watterson has scripted and financed a Calvin and
Hobbes movie are false.
The book is slated for October publication by Continuum Books. A
free chapter is available now; e-mail a request to lookingforcalvinandhobbes@gmail.com.
— D.X. Ferris
WHO DARES CHALLENGE TICKETMASTER?
Starting October 1, Cleveland-based ticketing service Veritix will
become the exclusive ticket provider for all events at Quicken Loans
Arena — from the Lake Erie Monsters to Metallica.
“We’re excited about the technology and conveniences and security
and new options this provides our fans and vendors,” says Cavaliers
spokesman Tad Carper. “We think Veritix offers the most fan-friendly
solutions on the market.”
Not that the new contract was the result of much bidding. Veritix’s
majority owner is Dan Gilbert, also chairmain/founder of Quicken Loans
and owner of the Cavs. Veritix’s clients include Denver’s Pepsi Center
and Houston’s Toyota Center. Veritix will exclusively sell Q-events
tickets on both the primary and secondary market, so don’t look for
mile-high prices to disappear any time soon.
For a Houston Green Day concert, online Veritix orders for a $49.50
ticket incur an additional $4 “arena handling fee,” plus an $8.50
“convenience fee.” For the upcoming Cleveland Jonas Brothers concert,
livenation.com diverts orders to
Ticketmaster’s website, where tickets are slapped with convenience fees
between $7.45 and $7.90, and a $4.10 order-processing fee.
Multiply that by the Q’s 20,000 capacity, and a sold-out show can
net close to $200,000 in excess fees alone.
Ticketmaster’s contract with the Q was set to expire in 2010, but
Veritix, Ticketmaster and the Cavaliers settled a lawsuit in May,
allowing the new arrangement.
Ticketmaster is the country’s largest live entertainment ticketing
and marketing company, operating worldwide. Last year, it purchased a
controlling interest in Front Line Management Group, a company that
represents giants such as the Eagles, Jimmy Buffett, Van Halen and Guns
N’ Roses. Ticketmaster is in talks to merge with entertainment behemoth
Live Nation.
Live Nation, which promotes most concerts at the arena, had no
comment about the switch to Veritix. The change could see more
big-ticket shows — an increasingly rare breed — held at the
nearby Wolstein Center at CSU, which has a capacity shy of 14,000.
Tickets sold via Ticketmaster before October will still be honored,
with no kind of conversion or exchange necessary — and no extra
fee. — Ferris
LOBBYISTS IN THE WHITE HOUSE?
SAY IT AIN’T SO, O!
Walking up the long and luxuriously paved hill to Shaker Heights
High School on Thursday afternoon with my two-year-old daughter Isabel
in a stroller, a peanut-butter cookie smeared all over her face and
dress, I’d never felt angrier at the president I helped to vote into
office.
You don’t want to see me, Obama? After all you’ve been through?
I’d called to reserve a spot in the press section for your big local
unveiling of a Health-Care Plan to Save All Health-Care Investors, the
one you crafted with all those dozens of insurance and pharmaceutical
lobbyists who came to the White House in recent months to be thanked
for your victory against Hillary. But one of your spokeswomen told me
basically that the mainstream media had this one covered, thanks all
the same. Seriously? Candidate Obama let me in.
So I took Isabel, thinking maybe she could woo someone in authority
to wave us in. No luck. And so we talked to people outside —
liberals and conservatives alike, and you know what, B? They all
fucking love you. Except for that little cluster of tax-whining
poster-boarders, huddled around their champion, the guy holding the one
with your picture as Jesus, warning passersby to “BEWARE FALSE IDOLS.”
They hate you. “Was he wearing a halo in there today?” he asked the
throngs leaving the forum. One girl was telling someone on her phone
how she touched your hand.
Steve Stipkovich, an 18-year-old freshman at Ohio State, came back
to the old alma mater to root you on. “I’m very conservative,
generally,” he said. “But I think he’s a good guy, that he really has
his heart and his mind in the right place. He’s got that smile, the
looks, the words. But I’m not too sure we don’t need to take more time
and consider the impact this [health care] bill is going to have. It’s
huge.”
Isabel gave the new man a look because he didn’t even try to say hi
to her. I gave him a look after he walked off because he seemed like a
Republican plant.
See? I’m looking out for you, B. Maybe it doesn’t matter to you that
I had Isabel all geared up, saying “O-BOM-BA, O-BOM-BA” all the way
from the house. Or that I voted for you. Or that I put an Obama poster
in my window leading up to the election and shot the stink-eye to the
guy in the fanny pack across the street, just because he gave your
poster the stink-eye. I’ve gushed unapologetically in stories about
your proposals, like I knew you and baptized your girls. I slammed W.
like he tripped my kid for fun.
The cold shoulder is one thing; the lobbyist caucuses another. And
then this: a health-care plan that keeps the insurance lobby in
monocles and Marriotts?
Isabel knows what I’m talking about. So does John Ross, a Toledo
physician who was wearing his lab coat and buttons on Thursday in
support of true universal care, HR676, the one that will be on the
other end of the looming Congressional debate.
“They call [Obama’s] plan socialism anyway, just for trying to
tackle it,” said Ross. “But think about it: The insurance industry
makes $10-$15 billion in profit annually. Why not just pay to make them
go away?”
But didn’t they pay to make Hillary go away? “He’s trying,” conceded
Ross. “He’s looking for some way to walk this tight rope.”
But Ross noted how you, Mr. President, drew the biggest applause on
Thursday when you did a little industry-bashing. Just a little. Woulda
been nice to witness that.
Listen to how Lana Moresky of Shaker Heights summed up the courage
you exhibited: “They were listing off the presidents who’ve said that
health care is a worry and they went back to, like, Truman. It’s been
forever we’ve been talking about this, so for people to say we’re
rushing into it … “
She’s right: You’re brave to try. America is a motherfucker, divided
almost perfectly in half. Cleveland’s like that too. You’d have seen
that better on Thursday if you would have taken Kinsman to the town
hall instead of the conveniently less-nasty detour, like we used to do
when we were young.
Respectfully, we don’t think the bubble behooves you, sir.
“He makes people feel like maybe America is starting to be what it’s
always said it was,” said Marsha Brooks, a lifelong Clevelander who was
one of the last to leave the school on Thursday. “We’ve still got a
long way to go, but this gives folks, especially young folks,
hope.”
But in what? Confidence in a system of superpowerdom?
I miss you, B. Call me. — Dan Harkins
BOXED IN
Members of the AIDS Taskforce of Greater Cleveland were already hot
and getting stinky at noon Monday, the start of their vigil outside the
county’s social-services building on Payne Avenue. CEO Earl Pike said
right there on the sidewalk — alongside a long line of cardboard
boxes with faux eviction notices taped on for symbolic flair —
that they would stay until the county finally coughs up the $120,000 in
federal rent-assistance money that the task force doles out each
quarter to poor HIV patients. The money is always late in coming, said
Pike, but they’ve been waiting almost five months so far this
cycle.
Of the approximately 150 people in the program (Ryan White Part A),
about 20 have already been told by their landlords to clear out. “These
people are ashamed,” said Pike. “Some feel like they’re doing something
wrong in asking, rather than this being a situation where the county,
who is supposed to provide these funds, is not coming through.”
The county didn’t even open up the application process until March,
just a month before the coverage period began. Pike says he knows the
county is suffering financially, but so is his agency.
His director of public policy, Jessica Gupta, said the agency is
$300,000 in hock already for other vital services. The state and city
are late in payments too. They suspect a little “co-mingling” of funds
taking place at a variety of levels.
“This year, we said enough is enough,” said Pike.
A few hours after the sun went down, Pike answered his cell phone
sounding less than optimistic. Pike, Gupta and two others planned to
sleep in the boxes out under the stars. “We’re still here,” he said.
“We saw [the county workers] get in their cars and leave, but we’ll be
here staying the night. We could take the easy road out now. They went
home; we could too. But we’re not going to do that.”
In the morning, amid the bustle of the clients visiting caseworkers
and probation officers, they were still waiting.
“Somebody told us the check was in the mail,” said Judith Pindell,
another task force member. “But they’ve been saying that for 10
years.”
Gupta looked tired. And angry. And resolute. “I’m here,” she said.
“I don’t know how many other people will be, but I’m doing it.”
But her wait was pretty much over. By noon on Tuesday, county
administrator Jim McCafferty told Scene that the check indeed
was in the mail.
“They knew they were getting their check today,” he said, “So I
don’t even know why they had the protest.”
McCafferty says he understands that the process is turtle-paced, but
this year it was exacerbated by a “performance issue that was dealt
with” — he declined to elaborate. “Our intent is that we won’t be
late next year. We’re looking at what we can do [to streamline], but
it’s a complicated process.” — Harkins
This article appears in Jul 29 – Aug 4, 2009.
