The contrast between "Calvin and Hobbes was threatened with widespread cancellation." and "only fifteen of the 1,800 papers running Watterson’s strip threatened" is quite stark.
The contrast between "Calvin and Hobbes was threatened with widespread cancellation." and "only fifteen of the 1,800 papers running Watterson’s strip threatened" is quite stark.
Yeah, so? Turns out the papers were bluffing/complaining. This sort of thing happens in many parts of life.
>>quite stark
Yes it is.
If you are running a paper and are already under stress and trying to streamline operations and now some cartoonist demands you use a format that requires significant extra work, you'd probably complain too, even threaten to drop that content. Threats are free, and they might work, especially if a lot of papers made similar complaints and threats.
But, when it came right down to the actual decision, knowing how many readers really love that particular artwork, and would even cancel their subscriptions if it were absent from your paper, and the math told you those losses would exceed the costs you were trying to avoid, so you'd find the papers collectively lost the conflict, and you'd keep it, do the extra work, and keep the subscribers.
Thinking about it for a minute, it seems unsurprising the difference between the initial cost-free bluster vs the final whimper of a handful of costly cancellations would be quite stark?