Calvin and Hobbes was a huge success and, by the end, it appeared in over 2,300 newspapers worldwide. He presently lives in the quiet town of Hudson, Ohio. There are no Calvin and Hobbes coffee mugs, no T-Shirts, no calendars, no motivational posters, no animated specials, and, most surprisingly, no stuffed animals. Certainly a fortune could be made off of Calvin and Hobbes Merchandise, and UPS pressured Watterson to license constantly over Calvin and Hobbes' ten year run. When cartoon characters appear on countless products, the public inevitably grows bored and irritated with them, and the appeal and value of the original work are diminished.
Nothing dulls the edge of a new and clever cartoon like suturing the market with it.
Watterson uses strong words when speaking of merchandising comic strips, he has gone as far to state that after a comic has been overly marketed it has no soul. After a bitter 5 year fight with UPS, Watterson was prepared to quit drawing comics, for UPS was going to license merchandise without his consent and hire a staff of writers and drawers to continue his strip. However, UPS wisely decided that they would be losing more than they would be gaining if they let Watterson go. UPS agreed not to merchandise Calvin and Hobbes, and Watterson continued making the strip for another 5 years. In place of officially licensed merchandise, several companies released illegal, unlicensed Calvin and Hobbes Merchandise.