Calvin & Hobbes all grown up?
Is “Jef Mallett” really Bill Watterson??
My theory is that this time around, Watterson is trying limited merchandising as an experiment. No stuffed Frazz dolls, of course, but some mouse pads and coffee mugs on which you can emblazon your favorite strip. Would a syndicate go along with this? Oh, God yes. If I were running a comic syndicate and Bill Watterson came to me with a proposal to pull a Richard Bachman, I’d not only fall to the ground and kiss his feet, I’d hire an actor to play the pseudonymic persona full time and have all the mailed strips routed through that actor’s place of residence, just to erase as many tracks as possible.
Read this. It’s actually pretty interesting.
Comments:
Hot damn — I’d know that style anywhere, and am more than happy to see it back in black and white. (Or color on Sunday…;)
Thank you, Amanda!
Not to worry. I will be grinding out the “Frazz-Pisses-On-Chevrolet-or-Dodge-Logo” merchandise tonight, in order to catch up with all this lagtime. If I had I known earlier . . .
Nope. Watterson is a better draftsman than that… look at the backgrounds, they are dull compared to the artwork in Calvin and Hobbes.
pretty good cartoon though and you can see Watterson was probably a big influenced on Jef Mallett (like he is on just about everyone who read C&H)
Okay, I’m not convinced any more — but if it’s not Watterson, the artist owes him big time. So many similarities.…
I’ve seen this happen before. Berke Breathed copied Garry Trudeau when he did the proto-Bloom County for the Daily Texan, and Dave Sim’s early Cerebus work was knocked off Barry Windsor-Smith’s Conan art.
As for “Frazz,” I can’t imagine why Watterson would jump all the way back to the early C&H-like work, nor abandoning his attitude toward merchandizing simply because of the “pissing Calvins.” The man endured years of harassment from his syndicate to maintain his stance, and it’s not like he needs the money. Reading his essay accompanying the Ohio U. catalog of his Sunday strips, he seems perfectly content learning about painting and whatever else he’s into.
It just doesn’t compute.
Thank you, Bill Peschel, for telling it like it is. In my opinion, these second-hand comics are a disgrace. How do they get published? My theory is that when they’re submitted, the cover letter probably reads something like: “Frazz/Bloom County/etc. taps into a market successfully exploited by Waterson/Trudeau/whoever…” In any event, they should be yanked from the newspapers.
Imitation is the biggest compliment?
Frazz is still in it’s early days, and Jef Mallett’s style is evolving. It took Berke Breathed years to develop his own style, and Outland (and beyond) is pretty unique. How many artists have copied Peanuts? Even Watterson credits much of his style to Krazy Kat.
Mallett is obviously heavily influenced by Watterson, but Watterson under a pseudonym? I’ll leave that to the conspiracy theorists.
Dave
I dunno, but while I can’t say that Watterson is back incognito, I also wouldn’t look at “Frazz” as an evil plagiaristic rip-off… just heavily influenced. “Frazz” comes out to be a wonderful comic that I consider a compliment to Watterson rather than an insult. I’m glad there’s something like Frazz out there.
not him.i held my breath for nothing :( if he’s bill, then— “that was a lousy joke man, stop goofing around and please give us the real stuff.”)
None of us live in a vaccuum. Is it a rip-off or heartfelt inspiration? A child learns from his or her parents. It’s not a mockery of your Dad because you try to be like him. In anycase a definite Calvin and Hobbes influence. Maybe too much but better this than more Foxtrot or some other tripe.
This is a rip-off, plain, simple, and blatant.
This no-talent Jeff Mallett hack deserves to be hammered with a sledge for disgracing the greatest piece of comics art of all time, “Calvin and Hobbes” by BILL WATTERSON.
Frazz is a piece of trash. It ain’t funny, it ain’t even a decent comic.
The best new comic out now is Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis anyways.
That’s the sh1t. Frazz and Mallett are just pieces of sh1t.
Out, yo.