One of my biggest influences Bill Watterson, the man who quit the advertising job he hated to make the Calvin and Hobbes comic book strip. For those who do not know, Calvin is the precocious young troublemaker with messy blonde hair and the red striped shirt, and Hobbes is his stuffed tiger who seems to come alive when nobody but Calvin is looking. Calvin is also sometimes seen on the back windows of people’s cars peeing on things. Whats interesting about the series is that, despite its popularity, people often don’t seem to understand the dynamic between the boy and tiger that he was trying to portray. Some people think that Hobbes is an imaginary friend while others think that Hes a magical stuffed animal that becomes real when no one else besides Calvin is looking. When Watterson was asked about his side of the two characters, he says that the relationship between child and stuffed animal goes to a much deeper level. Throughout the story, Hobbes always remained an inanimate stuffed object and his personality (or lack there of) was a result of the dichotomy between imagination and reality. The whole point of the story was about how a child sees a stuffed animal vs. how an adult sees a stuffed animal while sprinkling in themes of environmentalism, public education, and public opinion polls.

Now what I think is so influential about Bill Watterson was that he had a huge opportunity to turn Calvin and Hobbes into a major merchandising brand and he turned it down. Just think about the possibilities of selling a stuffed adaptation of a story about a stuffed animal. Look at how much money Jim Davis, the creator of Garfield, got from this thing. But Bill Watterson not only stayed true to his art, but he ended the series before it could grow faster than his creativity could keep up. He could have turned Calvin and Hobbes into Garfield and the Simpsons, but he chose the dignity of his work even though it was often misinterpreted.

The whole purpose of branding to to fix misinterpretations like these in a story or company, but Watterson believed that the different ideas of the two characters made the story what it is. The true essence of his comic book strip was how little time he spent telling people about it compared to other authors. As I read the story throughout my life, it took me a while to understand what a tiger was doing in a suburban child’s bedroom. I grew up and re-read the stories and uncovered the new levels of the what the author was trying to say. He exposed two different constructs of reality and showed how they failed to interact. In an age where the amount of information  causes us to make approximations about the world, we can’t lend ourselves to interpret everything objectively. Yes, Hobbes is a stuffed tiger to everyone around, but to one child, hes real.

If Bill Watterson pursued a branding venture of Calvin and Hobbes, I think he would have lost the special relationship between stories and how they are interpreted. As the Simpsons became entrenched with being a pop culture icon so much that the show traded in its substance to scratch and claw at relevancy. The comic book strip wouldn’t have lost its unique insight on politics, but a child’s imagination would be lost.

Today is the fifteenth of May in the year 2012, and it is officially day 4 of being a graduate of the University of Tennessee. I started college as a Pre-Med student with hopes of being a Cardiologist, and finished with two degrees in Advertising and Psychology with a minor in Business. So with my arsenal of state-approved knowledge, I could start and operate a counseling center, run commercials, manage a decent facebook and twitter page, and semi-lucratively manage its finances. Instead, the plan that I have chosen is to work at an Advertising agency in the greatest city in the world, New York City. With all the plans in place, I do not have any offers and the dreaded job search has begun.

Now, did not choose this career path because I like watching restaurant chain commercials, listening to credit report jingles, and looking at ads for chewing gum while reading a Rolling Stone. The fact is quite the contrary. I hate watching a commercial before a YouTube video starts, I hate the commercial break between songs on a Pandora station, and I really think that half the commercials on television are cheesy. But with all that said, I am a very devout optimist and I believe that paying my side of the bill does not have to be a miserable experience. I think that advertising should enhance the experience of watching television, looking at magazines, browsing the internet and checking facebook while helping it cost such  a low price. As doctors have to abide by the Hippocratic Oath to “Do no harm”, I would never want to contribute to a world that I would not want to live in.

Now I started this blog for two reasons. The first is to compensate for my personality to always look forward ambitiously. Author Kevin Wheldon said it with “Good enough is never good enough,” and this blog will act a a paper trail to document where I have been when the time comes for me too look backwards. The other reason I started this blog is because I wanted my experience to be the advice for future generations when they begin their job search. These past two years, I have listen to the advice of hundreds of people from almost every perspective of life. I have heard the “this is what I did..” and the “this is what I should have done…”. I have heard from CEOs, teachers, creatives, managers, interns, planners, doers, and college dropouts. I have heard every piece of “getting a job in advertising” cliche that has ever been said. I have heard conflicting advice from people who are equally successful in relatively the same job, and I have given some advice of my own (some of which I regret giving).

Since the “best” advice is given by people who didn’t follow it in the first place, hopefully somebody will learn from my failings and successes illustrated in this blog.

I know I will.

Talk to you soon,

Daniel Clark

p.s. If you want to check my Linkedin page go to http://www.linkedin.com/pub/daniel-clark/2a/399/77a

email me at: Clark.Daniel424@gmail.com