I tried to find something, but they just don't exist in the legitimate business world. I found an article about Watterson that said illicit Hobbes dolls are sold on street corners in many cities, but maybe that was something that has ended since the strip hasn't run in a while.
You know, dc, Watterson lives no more than 3 hours away from Pittsburgh in a town of about 4,000 people, maybe you could take a drive over there and see if you could convince him to change his mind by delivering the thread in person. 🙂
I am a big C&H fan, and even today in the aisle next to mine in the cubicle farm there's a collection of the "snowman" strips hanging up, and in the coffee room there's a taped-up copy of the strip where Calvin wonders "Where do we go when we die", and Hobbes says "Pittsburgh?".
It looks to me like Watterson kind of freaked out about the success of the strip and the accompanying publicity, and decided to abandon the strip to retain his privacy. While looking for the Hobbes doll, an article I saw said Watterson's "representative" tried to buy back the negative of a Watterson photo taken by a newspaper reporter in the 1980's. Apparently it was the last time he consented to a photo, and later regretted it.
