Hobbes from Calvin & Hobbes- knitted version!

I found this unfinished blog from 12 March 2012, and decided to complete it today. So here you go!

I was recently inspired to knit Hobbes from a facebook post written by a mate, who professed to a desire to have their own Hobbes! However, as you know, it is very hard to obtain a commercial plush toy of Hobbes.

According to an INTERVIEW with Bill Watterson held in February 1989, his thoughts on not having a plush toy made are as follows (the font in bold):

WEST: Well, what about something like a doll? That’s not a product like a coffee mag, which would be there whether the strip characters were printed on it or not. Why doesn‘t a doll fit into your definition of appropriate licensing?

WATTERSON: A doll communicates even less of the strip than the things mentioned before. A doll only cashes in on the recognizability of the character. Products like that take the character out of the world for which he was intended. If you stick thirty Hobbes dolls on a drugstore shelf, you're no longer talking about a character I created. At that point, you’ve transformed him into just another overpriced knickknack. I have no interest in turning my characters into commodities. If I’d wanted to sell plush garbage, I’d have gone to work as a carny.

The idea of a Hobbes doll is especially noxious, because the whole intrigue of Hobbes is that he may or may not be a real tiger. The strip deliberately sets up two versions of reality without committing itself to either one. If l’m not going to answer the question of who or what Hobbes is, I’m certainly not going to let Dakin answer it. It makes no sense to allow someone to make Hobbes into a stuffed toy for real, and deprive the strip of an element of its magic.

Bill probably lost over $300 million in merchandising over the years since the comic strip's creation on November 18, 1985 and its conclusion on December 31, 1995, but he never regretted his decision. He held firm on his beliefs, and kept his integrity intact. An admirable trait to have. 

So I ended up knitting a Hobbes, and here is what it looked like:

There is no knitting pattern for it- I just knitted it how I thought it should be, and it is totally unique. Hobbes- knitted version- was very well received!

On such a happy note, here's a couple of examples of the comic strip to end my post with! Enjoy!

I)

II)