WHIZ KID

0 Comments | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Mar 21, 2004 | by DAVE PHILIPPS THE GAZETTE

Spiky-haired, 6-year-old Calvin and his stuffed tiger Hobbes disappeared from the comics in 1995.

The 10-year run of dare-devil sledding, baby-sitter terrorizing and quirky moral observations ended when his creator, Bill Watterson, retired and threw in his pen.

Now -- if you haven't noticed, and it's hard not to -- a solo Calvin has taken his show on the road.

Without Watterson's permission, he's been acting naughty. He hangs out with a devilish grin on the back windows of pickup trucks all over the country, and, well... pees on things.

He sprinkles Chevy, Ford and Dodge logos. He targets NASCAR drivers' numbers. He douses "my job," "gun control," "Osama," and, unfortunately, "You."

For a few dollars, drivers can customize what's on the receiving end. Cops in Florida arrested a man for obscenity after spotting the sticker on the back of his pickup soiling the names of his former girlfriend, her husband, their daughter and Flamingo Villas, their neighborhood.

Fans of the comic mourn Calvin's co-option by NASCAR dads. Others say the enfant terrible is the latest turn in America's ever- evolving folklore. Sticker owners just see him as a potent way to express their philosophies. Whatever you think of Calvin, little escapes his stream.

Increasingly, Calvin also is showing up on the backs of SUVs kneeling in front of a cross, perhaps to atone for his antics.

It comes too late for some. For years as the stickers propagated - - and they've been around since at least 1996 -- Calvin and Hobbes fans lamented their hero's decline from philosophical first-grader to pope of the potty pulpit.

"The strip was so intelligent and these stickers are so stupid, you might as well put a sticker that says, 'I'm an idiot' on your car," said Jeanie Harlow, a fan in Colorado Springs who thinks the "vulgar" decals have tainted the mostly wholesome comic's legacy.

The eye rolling of fans hasn't stopped others from coming up with more subjects for the comic kid to turn his attentions to.

He even pees on "la migra," a Mexican slang term for the U.S. Border Patrol.

"There's a Calvin for just about everything now," said Carol Gardner, an amateur bumper anthropologist who wrote the book "Bumper Sticker Wisdom."

In fact, there is, literally, a Calvin soiling the word "everything."

"It's a way for people to stake out their identity, like any other bumper sticker," Gardner said.

The evolution of Calvin reminds her of the Darwin and Jesus fish decals. "One guy has one, then another guy has to reply. But the Calvin's aren't political. These guys are essentially just arguing over brands. What's more American than that?"

In a Wal-Mart parking lot in Colorado Springs, David Murraywas climbing into his Dodge pickup that had a sticker proclaiming "Losing is nature's way of saying you suck" on one side of the back window and Calvin watering a Ford emblem on the other.

"I grew up around cars. I just think certain cars are better," Murray explained politely.

"I've never really seen it upset anyone. It's all just a way of saying what you think in good fun. I get some dirty looks from guys with Fords, though," he added.

UNAUTHORIZED LEAK

Murray bought his sticker from a booth at a car show. They also can be found at flea markets, fairs and on the Internet.

That troublesome smirk doesn't show up at more traditional vendors because Watterson never licensed reproductions of his work. No Calvin and Hobbes T-shirts, no coffee cups and definitely no stickers of him peeing on "ex-wife."

There's no definite originator in the trend, but it's easy to imagine how Calvin evolved.

A sticker salesman stocked images from the popular comic along with Ford and Chevy decals, Tasmanian devils, "Cowgirl up for Jesus" stickers and other standards.

One day a visionary customer looked at his collection and said, "gimme one of them, and one of them." He stuck a peeing Calvin over a Ford emblem, and a grass-roots copyright infringement movement was born.

When Watterson stopped drawing Calvin and Hobbes, he became a recluse. He does not talk to the press, said Kathie Kerr, director of communications for Universal Press Syndicate, which distributed Calvin and Hobbes to newspapers, but she said Watterson finds the stickers very upsetting.

"We aggressively pursue people stealing Calvin's image," she said. "But most of them are fly-by-night operations that are hard to track down and prosecute."

As long as the pickup-driving public demands Calvin stickers, small sticker makers will supply them, Kerr said.

"This is a popular movement, a modern form of folklore," said Mike Preston, a professor at the University of Colorado in Boulder who specializes in Shakespeare and offcolor office fax humor.

"It's a distinctly bottom-of-the-pyramid type of humor. You see Calvin sprinkling 'my job,' but not 'my employees,' " he said. "This is a way for these people to feel empowered, which they may not be able to do at work or home."

Is Calvin's sneer one more scrap of evidence of the deteriorating moral fabric?

Not at all, Preston said. "If you want real depravity, read Shakepeare's 'Titus Andronicus.' They had murder and sex and all kinds of things. And that was 1594. People don't change. What changes is what we find acceptable."