5 ms·

>Imagine if Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit had been kept so pristine. I find it unlikely I would have heard about them, my local library was full of books fr

>Imagine if Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit had been kept so pristine. I find it unlikely I would have heard about them, my local library was full of books from the 50's I had never heard of and was reluctant to read. Seeing the Hobbit cartoon gave me an interest in it that I followed up on in middle school. On that note, the only way most children will hear of Calvin and Hobbes is if their parents were big fans or through the many unlicensed products available. Maybe that's fine, but people seem strangely proud that's the case.

OfSanguineFire 3y ago
Watterson himself was inspired by comic strips from the early 20th century. There were no cartoons or film adaptations of those around, but nevertheless they remained around for him to discover through books.
- boomboomsubban 3y ago
  From Wikipedia, >(Calvin and Hobbes) borrows several elements and themes from three major influences: Walt Kelly's Pogo, George Herriman's Krazy Kat and Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts. Pogo ran until ten years before Calvin and Hobbes started, and had several animated adaptations, including one in 1980. Krazy Kat had ~100 cartoons made between 1916 and 1965. And Peanuts has been marketed to death. I wouldn't be surprised if he read more early 20th century comics without adaptations, but that likely happened after he already had a deep interest in the medium. People that get really into comics can independently discover Calvin and Hobbes, but they're going to be a minority
ImprovedSilence 3y ago
Everyone knew about LOTR and read the books before the movies came out. It was in no way some obscure out of print lit, it was both pop and a cult classic, and it was very much front and center of any must read fantasy bookshelf. Hence the wildly profitable movies.
- emptyfile 3y ago
  [dead]
- boomboomsubban 3y ago
  It's impossible to say how popular the series would have been in the late 90's without the cartoons. It'd probably still be a fantasy classic, but I never actively searched out the fantasy genre. I read those books because of the cartoons.
  - PhasmaFelis 3y ago
    It was the best-known and most influental fantasy fiction on Earth before the cartoons. Anyone with more than a passing interest in fantasy was at least aware of Lord of the Rings. I'm sure the cartoons helped, and I also loved the Hobbit movie, but I think you're making your own experience more universal than it really was.
    - vidarh 3y ago
      Yes, but as sales numbers for genre literature will tell you, most people don't read fantasy (or sci fi, or pretty much any genre literature outside of romance and thrillers). Being one of the best-known genre-work of all genres means the vast majority of people have still not read it. Estimates worldwide sales were around 50m by 2003, and 150m by 2007. Figuring out where they were at before the movies is hard, but the US 2001 edition of LOTR alone sold ~2m copies between 2001 and 2003, so it's pretty clear sales in 2001-2003 were far higher than the average for the preceding years of sale.
      - bryanrasmussen 3y ago
        > but the US 2001 edition of LOTR alone sold ~2m copies between 2001 and 2003 do we have stats for sales in the 1980s etc. ? I would expect the 2m was replacement, new generation of readers sales because before extra market opened up by movies (which obviously must have happened) all the people who would buy that book, which was also probably a lot, had already bought one.
7thaccount 3y ago
The animated Hobbit cartoon movie is a freaking treasure. It got me into fantasy as a kid and led me to reading the Tolkien books. I have passed it on to my daughter and the opening scene where Thorin & Gandalf talk about the Dragon while reading direct quotes from the book still gives me chills and was probably my first real experience with poetry.
- chrisweekly 3y ago
  Yes. Also, the music was extraordinary.
  - WalterBright 3y ago
    Music has a very strong influence on how good a movie is.
  - 7thaccount 3y ago
    That harp was pretty amazing.
coldtea 3y ago
>I find it unlikely I would have heard about them, my local library was full of books from the 50's I had never heard of and was reluctant to read Millions read LOTR and Hobbit before the movies, and they had very active communities all the way to the 90s. Like millions have read HGTTG before the movie (who didn't even do that well) and millions continue to do so -- including millions worldwide who never heard the radio show ever.
- usrusr 3y ago
  Is h2g2 still on the minds of people that age? When I got into it, to the eyes of a teen it seemed as if it had been there forever (1). Not quite as much as LoTR but well established nonetheless. But actually it was still in its increasingly inaccurately named phase, so it would still get an attention refresh from time to time. Decades passing with the only attention refresh being a not terribly well received movie, I suspect that much of the awareness we are prone to take for granted simply does not exist in people who only know the 20th century from hearsay (which brings us back to Watterson I guess, the topic of absent "attention refresh"). ((1) and already established in book form, its radio origins already relegated to fan trivia - it was years after reading the books that I realized that I had actually heard quite a bit of it in radio form before, enjoying it to the point of deliberately tuning in each week, without committing the name of the show to memory. Not the original radio show buy a german language production, would be interesting to see where on the spectrum between original show and "radiofication" of the books those episodes were, I don't think they made that show before the books became a radiant success)
  - iggldiggl 3y ago
    > Not the original radio show buy a german language production, would be interesting to see where on the spectrum between original show and "radiofication" of the books those episodes were, I don't think they made that show before the books became a radiant success. Wikipedia claims the German audio version was based on first six episodes of the UK radios series, and I do remember noticing that some plot points differed somewhat from the books (and then when I finally listened to the original radio series, I somewhat recognised those differing plot points again).
bazoom42 3y ago
> my local library was full of books from the 50's I had never heard of and was reluctant to read. Ok but whose loss is that? Tolkien did not write for people who were afraid of old books. If he had wanted to reach the largest audience possible whatever the means, he would have written differently. It happenede that a rather large audience did appreaciate his works in their original form, apparently also to the surprise of Tolkien himself.

OfSanguineFire 3y ago

Watterson himself was inspired by comic strips from the early 20th century. There were no cartoons or film adaptations of those around, but nevertheless they remained around for him to discover through books.

boomboomsubban 3y ago
From Wikipedia, >(Calvin and Hobbes) borrows several elements and themes from three major influences: Walt Kelly's Pogo, George Herriman's Krazy Kat and Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts. Pogo ran until ten years before Calvin and Hobbes started, and had several animated adaptations, including one in 1980. Krazy Kat had ~100 cartoons made between 1916 and 1965. And Peanuts has been marketed to death. I wouldn't be surprised if he read more early 20th century comics without adaptations, but that likely happened after he already had a deep interest in the medium. People that get really into comics can independently discover Calvin and Hobbes, but they're going to be a minority

ImprovedSilence 3y ago

Everyone knew about LOTR and read the books before the movies came out. It was in no way some obscure out of print lit, it was both pop and a cult classic, and it was very much front and center of any must read fantasy bookshelf. Hence the wildly profitable movies.

emptyfile 3y ago
[dead]
boomboomsubban 3y ago
It's impossible to say how popular the series would have been in the late 90's without the cartoons. It'd probably still be a fantasy classic, but I never actively searched out the fantasy genre. I read those books because of the cartoons.
- PhasmaFelis 3y ago
  It was the best-known and most influental fantasy fiction on Earth before the cartoons. Anyone with more than a passing interest in fantasy was at least aware of Lord of the Rings. I'm sure the cartoons helped, and I also loved the Hobbit movie, but I think you're making your own experience more universal than it really was.
  - vidarh 3y ago
    Yes, but as sales numbers for genre literature will tell you, most people don't read fantasy (or sci fi, or pretty much any genre literature outside of romance and thrillers). Being one of the best-known genre-work of all genres means the vast majority of people have still not read it. Estimates worldwide sales were around 50m by 2003, and 150m by 2007. Figuring out where they were at before the movies is hard, but the US 2001 edition of LOTR alone sold ~2m copies between 2001 and 2003, so it's pretty clear sales in 2001-2003 were far higher than the average for the preceding years of sale.
    - bryanrasmussen 3y ago
      > but the US 2001 edition of LOTR alone sold ~2m copies between 2001 and 2003 do we have stats for sales in the 1980s etc. ? I would expect the 2m was replacement, new generation of readers sales because before extra market opened up by movies (which obviously must have happened) all the people who would buy that book, which was also probably a lot, had already bought one.

7thaccount 3y ago

The animated Hobbit cartoon movie is a freaking treasure. It got me into fantasy as a kid and led me to reading the Tolkien books. I have passed it on to my daughter and the opening scene where Thorin & Gandalf talk about the Dragon while reading direct quotes from the book still gives me chills and was probably my first real experience with poetry.

chrisweekly 3y ago
Yes. Also, the music was extraordinary.
- WalterBright 3y ago
  Music has a very strong influence on how good a movie is.
- 7thaccount 3y ago
  That harp was pretty amazing.

coldtea 3y ago

>I find it unlikely I would have heard about them, my local library was full of books from the 50's I had never heard of and was reluctant to read Millions read LOTR and Hobbit before the movies, and they had very active communities all the way to the 90s. Like millions have read HGTTG before the movie (who didn't even do that well) and millions continue to do so -- including millions worldwide who never heard the radio show ever.

usrusr 3y ago
Is h2g2 still on the minds of people that age? When I got into it, to the eyes of a teen it seemed as if it had been there forever (1). Not quite as much as LoTR but well established nonetheless. But actually it was still in its increasingly inaccurately named phase, so it would still get an attention refresh from time to time. Decades passing with the only attention refresh being a not terribly well received movie, I suspect that much of the awareness we are prone to take for granted simply does not exist in people who only know the 20th century from hearsay (which brings us back to Watterson I guess, the topic of absent "attention refresh"). ((1) and already established in book form, its radio origins already relegated to fan trivia - it was years after reading the books that I realized that I had actually heard quite a bit of it in radio form before, enjoying it to the point of deliberately tuning in each week, without committing the name of the show to memory. Not the original radio show buy a german language production, would be interesting to see where on the spectrum between original show and "radiofication" of the books those episodes were, I don't think they made that show before the books became a radiant success)
- iggldiggl 3y ago
  > Not the original radio show buy a german language production, would be interesting to see where on the spectrum between original show and "radiofication" of the books those episodes were, I don't think they made that show before the books became a radiant success. Wikipedia claims the German audio version was based on first six episodes of the UK radios series, and I do remember noticing that some plot points differed somewhat from the books (and then when I finally listened to the original radio series, I somewhat recognised those differing plot points again).

bazoom42 3y ago

> my local library was full of books from the 50's I had never heard of and was reluctant to read. Ok but whose loss is that? Tolkien did not write for people who were afraid of old books. If he had wanted to reach the largest audience possible whatever the means, he would have written differently. It happenede that a rather large audience did appreaciate his works in their original form, apparently also to the surprise of Tolkien himself.