Murmurs about a Calvin and Hobbes theme for Winter Carnival that have been heard around campus for weeks are technically unfounded: the 2006 theme for Dartmouth's blowout winter weekend is "Stupendous Games: Mischief in the Snow" -- a deliberate move by the carnival committee to skirt copyright laws.
Cartoonist Bill Watterson does not license the rights for his two characters because he feels that using the characters in marketing strategies violates the spirit that they represent, according to the website of Watterson's publisher, Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC.
After the College's legal office told the carnival committee that it may run into legal problems by using the Calvin and Hobbes characters, the group looked into the copyright laws, according to carnival co-chair Megan Paradise '08.
The committee was able to confirm that the College's legal office was correct and adjusted the theme right away, said committee member Jonathan Kling '04.
Andrews McMeel, however, was not contacted by the College, according to Rebecca Schuler, publicity director at Andrews McMeel. She added that even if Dartmouth had contacted the company, there was only a minute possibility that they would have received any rights.
"As a company, we do not hold the rights to license Mr. Watterson's artwork. Mr. Watterson retains his rights and, to my knowledge, does not license them for any type of promotion or event," she said.
Kling said the committee saw it as unnecessary to contact Watterson or the publisher once the theme was altered to "Stupendous Games."
"We made no official inquiry because the theme of Carnival did not require it," he said.
By not using the Calvin and Hobbes figures, the committee successfully skirted copyright laws, something that has been done in previous years as well, Paradise said. She pointed out that the names of Peter Pan and Tinkerbell were not used during last year's Neverland theme for similar copyright reasons.
However, Paradise did admit that copyright problems "might be more in the forefront this year" compared to past Winter Carnivals.
This year, instead of using the Watterson's drawings, the committee used "imagery of kids having snowball fights, deranged snowmen, and other activities in the form of Calvin and Hobbes style and font," MacFayden said.
After reviewing the copyright law again, the committee did decide, however, that using the images on the snow sculpture would be acceptable, Paradise said.
The Winter Carnival Committee gathered during Fall term to decide on the theme, the first step in a long process of Carnival planning. The committee took theme suggestions from the student body and then asked for Carnival titles via BlitzMail, MacFayden said.
Many students believed that the theme of the carnival was Calvin and Hobbes.
"I never knew that the theme was not Calvin and Hobbes," Amanda Lobel '09 said.
The committee chose this year's theme with the Winter Olympics and the Carnival's history in mind. The Carnival originally started when the varsity ski races, the largest in the Northeast, were held and eventually became associated with the Olympics due to Dartmouth's large amount of Olympians, MacFayden said. She explained that this year's theme "captured [the] fun, playful, mischievous spirit of Calvin and Hobbes" while also keeping the Olympics involved by including the words "Stupendous Games" in the title. The sculpture also features the characters racing in a bobsled, another reminder of the Olympics.
"All great themes have been done in the past in some way so it's difficult to come up with new themes," MacFayden said.