Anatomy of a scam

This kinda story is right up my alley (as my parents often like to say) because it involves 1) Calvin and Hobbes (of which I have been a huge fan for almost my entire life), 2) something fishy that has received almost no attention in the media (mainstream or otherwise), and 3) something that is fishy in a way that irritates me, as it already has numerous other fans of the original strip.

First, some background: this story concerns the fictional book "Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie", which is referenced in a decent number of C&H strips as a children's bedtime story that Calvin loves, but his dad hates (at least in later strips). We never learn anything about what happens in this nonexistent book, because though it is clear that Calvin's dad does read it to him in multiple strips, the scenes where he reads the actual book are always omitted. (C&H originally ran from 1985 to 1995, which is important to this post, as will become clear soon.)

So there was never a real book by this title--at least not until December 1, 2004, when "Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie" was published by Hamster Huey Press. According to the Calvin and Hobbes Wiki, this press never published anything besides this book. More concerning, this "publishing company" is not affiliated with Universal Press Syndicate, or with the author of Calvin and Hobbes itself (Bill Watterson), so they clearly have no right to use any content from C&H. However, Joe Mason, in an email to the website Museum of Hoaxes in 2005, said that "I don't think titles are copyrightable, so this may even be legal". A quick Google search turns up an article on The Balance which also says that book titles aren't usually copyrighted (at least in the US). So it's likely that this "book" isn't violating any copyright laws.

The now-offline website for Hamster Huey Press says that it "...is owned and operated by Paul Spadoni." A commenter at Museum of Hoaxes named Ian has noted that: "The vast majority of the positive reviews seem to be from people who live in Gig Harbor or Port Orchard, Wash. (somehow, this isn't surprising in the least). As has been noted, http://www.hamsterhuey.com , http://www.hamsterhueypress.com are both registered to Paul Spadoni of Gig Harbor. And http://www.calvinandhobbesfanclub.com ? Lindsey Noelle (supposedly the webmistress) also apparently hails from Gig Harbor (as indicated by her glowing review of "Hamster" on Amazon.com), but not surprisingly, a WHOIS search reveals that the site is registered to (tada!) Paul Spadoni. I guess that explains why most of the "content" on the site revolves around promoting "Hamster Huey" - any actual Calvin & Hobbes content is just to set up the association - to falsely establish that this is indeed THE "Hamster Huey" of C&H fame. 

What is now the firt [sic] (earliest) review on Amazon.com is written by a "Randall Spadoni" (hmm, think maybe he's related to Paul Spadoni?), in which he writes "FOR A STORY WRITTEN AROUND A TITLE, this one's pretty good." [my emphasis]. There you have it, folks!" The book's author and illustrator are listed as Mabel Barr and Nick Goettling, respectively." 

The part of this story that really seems to get my goat, however, is that the vanity publisher of this "book" (which may not even exist, as Mason suggested) stretched their "biography" of Barr (who herself may not even exist) on their website ridiculously thin when it is obvious that she is either a nobody with no literary experience or accomplishments or does not exist at all, e.g. saying she has been "a storyteller nearly all her life". What this all reeks of is vagueness to explain the inability of anyone to verify anything about the "author".