[HN Gopher] 'Calvin and Hobbes' at 40
___________________________________________________________________
'Calvin and Hobbes' at 40
Author : mooreds
Score : 327 points
Date : 2025-11-20 12:08 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.npr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.npr.org)
| WillAdams wrote:
| I can still remember choosing between the morning or evening
| paper based on which included _Calvin and Hobbes_, so it
| certainly worked to sell papers.
|
| The boxed collection is wonderful, and one of my favourites.
|
| For folks who want a bit more, there have been a couple of
| homages:
|
| "Hobbes and Bacon": https://imgur.com/gallery/all-hobbes-bacon-
| by-pants-are-over... --- a bit too on-the-nose for my taste,
| which doesn't really add anything
|
| "Calvin and Company" by DomNX, wherein Calvin and Susie have
| twins named after Albert Camus and Simone de Beauvoir --- art not
| fully realized/up to the task, and again, all a bit too obvious
|
| There was also one simply heart-breaking one, where Calvin has
| cancer, gets a decrepit Hobbes out of storage, and gifts him to a
| troubled grandchild, but not finding it on searching....
|
| The thing is, laughing at problems, while cathartic, isn't
| actually inspiring folks to actually understand/solve
| problems/make the world a better place.... I'm reminded of a
| comic from childhood where a child sees duck hunters as part of
| the reason why a forest is clearcut for a development, instead of
| the reason why such land is preserved (the Pa. State Game
| Commission manages over 1.5 million acres) or, maybe I'm just
| overly pessimistic this morning because of intractable problems
| where people choose wrongly, mostly through not understanding the
| problem/ignorance/lack of sympathy for others --- classic
| example, drivers in cars who get upset because following a
| cyclist causes them slow down on their way to a red light ---
| rather a shame that the strips featuring Calvin's father as a
| cyclist weren't didactic so as to show/discuss that sort of
| thing, rather than going for the laugh.
| adolph wrote:
| > The boxed collection is wonderful, and one of my favourites.
|
| And it still holds up for kids of today. My son is a second gen
| Calvin and Hobbes kid.
| SanjayMehta wrote:
| > There was also one simply heart-breaking one, where Calvin
| has cancer, gets a decrepit Hobbes out of storage, and gifts
| him to a troubled grandchild, but not finding it on
| searching....
|
| Are you sure this was a comic? It's a story someone wrote,
| available on Scribd.
| WillAdams wrote:
| Maybe that's what I'm recalling.
|
| This one?
|
| https://www.scribd.com/document/848787362/Calvin
| minihat wrote:
| I think the comic achieves something deeper than a lecture. The
| humor might reconnect us with a sense of awe we often lose as
| adults.
| shagie wrote:
| > For folks who want a bit more, there have been a couple of
| homages:
|
| I believe the Zen Pencils one is one of the better ones... it's
| not Calvin and Hobbes, but rather about Watterson himself.
|
| http://www.zenpencils.com/comic/128-bill-watterson-a-cartoon...
| RhysU wrote:
| Much, but not all, of 'Phoebe and Her Unicorn' has just-enough
| echoes of C&H while doing its own thing.
|
| https://www.gocomics.com/phoebe-and-her-unicorn
| debo_ wrote:
| This is so cute!
| WillAdams wrote:
| Thank you for that!
|
| Ordering the first boxed set for my daughter's birthday next
| year.
| TACD wrote:
| A couple of other comics with their own distinct personalities
| but an unmistakable C&H vibe:
|
| Cul de Sac (https://www.gocomics.com/culdesac)
|
| Wallace the Brave (https://www.gocomics.com/wallace-the-brave)
| svat wrote:
| The comic "Frazz" is also often compared to Calvin and Hobbes
| (as if Frazz the janitor is an adult Calvin), there's a long
| section on the Wikipedia page:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frazz
| RunSet wrote:
| Gene Wolfe wrote a story titled _Petting Zoo_ , and here is the
| introduction he wrote for it:
|
| > _Petting Zoo_ is a favorite story of David Hartwell 's, the
| master editor who edited this book and most of my others. Do
| you like dinosaurs? I loved them when I was a kid, and I've
| noticed that Hobbes' buddy Calvin loves them at least as much.
| Perhaps David feels the same way.
|
| _Petting Zoo_ can be read here:
|
| https://archive.org/details/yearsbestsf30000unse/page/n9/mod...
|
| Bill Watterson also guest-drew a few precious strips for Pearls
| Before Swine.
|
| https://slate.com/culture/2014/06/bill-watterson-does-pearls...
| WillAdams wrote:
| It wounds me that I missed that latter, and that the
| commentary on it at:
|
| https://toostupidtotravel.org/2014/06/07/ever-wished-that-
| ca...
|
| is 404.
| elicash wrote:
| My own personal favorites:
| https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XryL7duzj_WZEy0dtdDO48_s...
| olau wrote:
| The ones about Calvin having an awful day due to what's
| demanded of him are honestly heartbreaking.
| losvedir wrote:
| I was actually just thinking of that "cow milk" one the other
| day. I remember when I read C&H as a kid thinking that one was
| absolutely hilarious and oh so true. Then I realized, now that
| I'm older and more experienced in the world, and have had kids,
| that the idea of drinking cow milk is not actually that far-
| fetched. Udders look weird, sure, but you know what they are.
|
| In other words, it's kind of amazing that Watterson was able to
| put himself in the mind of a child so well for that strip.
| andix wrote:
| My favorite Calvin and Hobbes reference: https://xkcd.com/409/
|
| There are even more on xkcd:
| https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Category:Calvin_a...
| conartist6 wrote:
| smbc-comics has done a whole slew of C+H inspired strips with
| two kids out having a deep but strage philosophical
| conversation. It's very difficult to actually find anything
| you're looking for in the SMBC archives though... E.g.
| https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/qualia
| gazook89 wrote:
| Zach Weinersmith's Beawolf graphic novel is basically an ode
| to Calvin. He has a new book coming out soon, too.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Looks like it's "Bea Wolf" (I had not heard of it and
| Googled.)
| thunderbong wrote:
| Mobile view -
|
| https://m.xkcd.com/409/
| HeinzStuckeIt wrote:
| IMO, Watterson stopped at just the right time to preserve his
| legacy and keep the strip associated with childlike wonder and
| innocence. In the last years of _C &H_ there was a certain
| curmudgeonliness creeping in, as Waterson started to mock modern
| commerce and art. I think the cartoonist was naturally growing
| older and more disillusioned, and his strip faintly started to
| sound like Calvin's dad instead of Calvin.
| dbatten wrote:
| At least based on some of the things he's written in some of
| the anthologies, it seems like a lot of that disillusionment
| was not just because of age, but rather because of his battles
| with the publishers and what not that were pushing him to make
| changes that he felt would compromise the integrity of the
| strip. A lot of the comics include subtle jabs about corporate
| greed, artistic integrity, etc. because he was actively
| fighting with the corporations that distributed his strip over
| such matters...
|
| Still, 100% agreed that he stopped at the right time, both
| because of the creeping cynicism, but also simply because he
| was running out of fresh ideas...
| andix wrote:
| I had to look up what curmudgeonliness means, Wiktionary was
| extremely helpful:
|
| curmudgeonliness: The state or condition of being curmudgeonly.
|
| okay, let's look up curmudgeonly:
|
| curmudgeonly: Characteristic of a curmudgeon; churlish
|
| nearly there:
|
| curmudgeon: An ill-tempered person full of stubborn ideas or
| opinions, often an older man.
| dmoy wrote:
| Yea English be like that sometimes
|
| Look up some crazy sounding 20+ character word, takes three
| steps, and then you get a definition of the sub-sub-sub word
| and it says ".... blah blah, derived from the Greek base
| <abc>- and then also the Latin base -<xyz>", and you realize
| you had no chance at getting it from any kind of first
| principles or anything.
| andix wrote:
| I meant the remarks about wiktionary in a sarcastic way.
| Explaining the word's meaning twice by itself was a bit
| funny.
|
| Especially as it's not a very common word a lot of non-
| native speakers need to look up. Probably also a few native
| speakers.
| mhink wrote:
| For what it's worth, the first two steps in your lookup
| would come naturally to a native speaker- it's a suffix
| formation similar to e.g. "cleanliness" and
| "friendliness".
|
| "Curmudgeon" itself is interesting, because while it's
| not particularly common, I actually think a lot of native
| English speakers would recognize it because it's got a
| lot of character- for some reason, the way it feels to
| say and the way it sounds almost has some of the
| character of the meaning.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| George Carlin, in my opinion, followed a similar arc. In the
| end he was just ranting for an hour. I appreciated his
| perspective (and delivery) but it was a lot more nihilistic,
| less funny.
| takinola wrote:
| If memory serves, Waterson said the later years were colored by
| his feelings from dealing with publishers. One of the most
| memorable comics for me is one where Calvin ends up in bed
| after resisting his parents' bedtime commands. In the final
| panel he bitterly declares that clearly his desires have no
| impact on his outcomes.
| mandevil wrote:
| I'm currently working through the Complete Calvin and Hobbes
| with my 9 year old, and he had these jabs at commercialism
| throughout, though it might have been sharper towards the end,
| but he was already jaded by art in 1985 as a 27 year old.
|
| He had dreamed of being a cartoonist from childhood (when he
| was 8 he wrote Charles Shulz of Peanuts who wrote him back and
| it changed his life). He had actually majored in Political
| Science at Kenyon College (class of '80) because he thought
| that political cartooning was going to be his route in. It was
| not. He was a political cartoonist at the Cincinnati Post
| briefly before they fired him, then he worked for an ad agency
| and freelanced a bit before Universal Press Syndicate signed
| him on for Calvin and Hobbes. But, even at 27 when he started
| working for UPS, he understood the pressure of the professional
| art world and was cynical about it.
|
| Apparently he lived a miserable life for the last few years of
| his work. He had been injured in a bike accident and it
| terrified him that he would be injured in such a way that he
| could no longer draw (1) so he basically stopped going out,
| stopped doing anything that could possibly harm his ability to
| earn money, stopped doing anything that might bring joy to his
| life. He lived a recluse for several years, before deciding to
| just quit, then he and his wife Melissa adopted a child and
| gave her a good life.
|
| 1: Bill Mauldin, the Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist who
| created Willie and Joe, was the editorial cartoonist for the
| Chicago Sun Times when, in 1991, he crushed his right hand
| attaching a snow-plow to his truck, and he had to retire. I
| think that incident is what inspired this fear, the timelines
| match up. But of course, Watterson is famously private and so
| this is conjecture.
| jmdeon wrote:
| I'm sure it was also for his own sake/sanity. He took two
| ~9-month sabbaticals toward the last half, which was not the
| norm for cartoonists at the time.
| h2zizzle wrote:
| Growing up, we had collected volumes of Calvin and Hobbes,
| Garfield, and The Boondocks. Surprisingly good bedfellows.
| Covered the bases, so to speak.
| cons0le wrote:
| The Boondocks is probably the most witty cartoon ever made. It
| still holds up because we've largely not advanced as a society
| lylejohnson wrote:
| I also tend to associate "Bloom County" with "Calvin and
| Hobbes". I think I was reading both of them around the same
| time.
| buildbot wrote:
| Same here, though I started bloom county a lot later. Almost
| all of my 80s cultural knowledge stems from that comic
| haha...
| jmclnx wrote:
| 1985, I thought they were around a lot longer.
|
| I remember people at work talking about that comic and loving it.
| But the my City Newspaper did not carry it :(
|
| I can see it now in gocomics and it is great.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Mandela.
| fruitplants wrote:
| Calvin's dad was quite a character, wasn't he?
| dhosek wrote:
| My role model as a parent. I had the why are old pictures in
| black and white conversation with my kids almost word for word.
| It wasn't until they were in fourth grade that they learned
| that the world didn't used to be black and white.
|
| I think they still believe what I told them about how they
| determine weight limits for bridges though.
| andrepd wrote:
| You should show then the linear velocity vs angular velocity
| thing, to keep them awake until 3am
| megaloblasto wrote:
| I hope this is a joke. Calvin's dad lying to him wasn't
| supposed to be idealized.
| dheerajvs wrote:
| "Imagination is more important than knowledge."
| briandrum wrote:
| We just finished rebuilding the bridge in the center of Mr.
| Watterson's hometown, and I couldn't pass up the opportunity
| to reference that one!
|
| https://councilmandrum.net/notes/bridge-closure/
| irrational wrote:
| As a child I identified with Calvin. Now as a 50+ year old I
| find I identify much more with the dad.
| Pinus wrote:
| If you want something to hang on your wall, an original strip is
| coming up for auction in Stockholm more or less as I write. The
| bid is currently at over 1 MSEK (100kUSD)...
| https://auctionet.com/sv/events/891-the-modern-art-design-sa...
| danishSuri1994 wrote:
| One thing that always struck me about Calvin & Hobbes is how well
| it ages. The humor lands when you're a kid, but the subtext only
| becomes clear as an adult.
|
| Watterson managed to keep that dual perspective without letting
| the strip drift into cynicism, which is rare for long-running
| comics.
| NiloCK wrote:
| That is just two years after I burst onto the page.
|
| Calvin and Hobbes was a major part of my childhood - I loved it.
| For something casually consumed on the daily at the breakfast
| table, it was so earnestly, so obviously, smarter than the median
| cultural offering. Smarter also then the local nightly news
| broadcasts. Smarter also than the median educational intervention
| I experienced through elementary and middle school. It had
| finished by the time I was in high school.
|
| I _still_ love it, but my feelings now are mixed as well.
|
| Calvin wasn't exactly a pro-social role model for me. He was the
| hero of the smartest media I was acquainted with - the sharpest
| mouthpiece for what was going on around me and how to _be alive_.
| It was vitally important for me to live up to his disdain for
| schooling, his aloofness, his contrarianism. Nothing horrified
| eight or ten or fifteen or twenty-two year old me so much as
| _conforming_ (gross) to a Susie Perkins mode of existence -
| smart, but seemingly oblivious or indifferent to life 's
| contradictions and hypocrisies.
|
| Some thirty years later I understand that a person can move
| pragmatically, without self-harm or self-righteousness, through
| life's contradictions and hypocrisies without being oblivious or
| indifferent. Who knew?
| complianceowl wrote:
| You know, your comment reminds me of something my wife and I
| were talking about. We have been starting to let our child have
| a little more screen time and choose what he wants to watch
| (within the parameters we set).
|
| Some shows and movies seem harmless, initially, but then we
| noticed in so many kids movies (e.g., Zootopia, Sing), they're
| always yelling at each other, expressing anger, frustration,
| and hostility towards one another.
|
| Then we wonder why kids adopt those attitudes. It's simply
| because mimic what they see. And worse yet, when they see it in
| movie/show form, they think those attitudes are cool and
| relatable.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > Some shows and movies seem harmless, initially, but then we
| noticed in so many kids movies (e.g., Zootopia, Sing),
| they're always yelling at each other, expressing anger,
| frustration, and hostility towards one another.
|
| My kids are similar. Years ago I actually just unplugged the
| TV and put it behind some furniture for 3 months because I
| was so fed up. It calmed them down a lot (this was after
| Covid lockdowns, when we'd just given them too much TV) but
| still - it flares up.
|
| I do think a lot of kids tv is either straight addictive
| (e.g. Cocomelon) or depicts how kids would like to behave,
| e.g. in how they talk to adults rudely (e.g. how they talk to
| the dad in Peppa Pig), or they're always right and the adults
| are wrong (too may examples to name). Bluey is the saving
| grace there, as it depicts healthy and respectful
| relationships, but it's very unusual.
| grepfru_it wrote:
| As always, the home model is what has greater influence
| than any tv show. If parents are also behaving as in the TV
| shows then the shows simply serve as confirmation bias to
| what the children observe.
|
| I noticed that when I adopted a loving, quieter tone, and
| truly focused on do as i do vs do as i say attitudes, my
| children began to reject the "norms" shown on the tv shows.
| Today my children remark about how their friends act at
| their homes and towards their parents, and we have
| discussions about it.
|
| That said, I definitely had the problem you describe, but
| it was resolved by focusing on consequences of actions and
| being ready to follow through on punishments (much like you
| did). Combined with the do as i do attitude, those
| punishments were ultimately punishments for me as well. You
| are being a terorrizing little bad ass? ok no TV. But then
| this means I can't watch TV because then they might watch
| TV while in the same room as me. Mutual pain.
| gtd wrote:
| Peppa Pig is at least funny. The one that pushed me over
| the edge wrt to behavior modeling was Caillou. My god
| people have some self respect as parents. You have to have
| to create some boundaries for children, not just knee-jerk
| syrupy-sweet coddling from dawn til dusk.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Dr Angela Collier just did a video on children's tv. She
| has some good recommendations. Evidently before she became
| an astrophysicist she got a degree in education. Who knew?
| madcaptenor wrote:
| link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyatqN63RZ4
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Don't forget that in most shows where kids are the main-
| characters, adults in general (and particularly parents)
| are either absent or less mature than the kids. This is the
| easiest way to make the kids shine, but certainly
| communicates a particular message. I really respected
| Netflix's _The Baby Sitters Club_ for not falling into that
| trap.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > Bluey is the saving grace there
|
| I somehow had never heard about Bluey until TheOdd1sOut
| (YouTuber who does hilarious 10-15 minute video on slice-
| of-life topics) did a video about it.
|
| https://youtu.be/nEQHiJVH79o
|
| The TL;DW is that Bluey is a kids show that not only
| recognizes that the parents will likely be in the room
| while the show is on and therefore will occasionally have
| lines that are _meant_ for them, but will actually tackle
| tough topics that children and their families may be
| dealing with. For example, in one episode, Bluey 's mom is
| despairing because Bluey isn't reaching development
| milestones when he should be, she's blaming herself, and
| another character comes to console her, and the character
| looks directly towards the viewer and says "You're doing
| great!"
|
| I'm almost tempted to actually watch the show even though I
| don't have kids.
| lll-o-lll wrote:
| > Bluey isn't reaching development milestones when he
| should be
|
| _She_ should be. Bluey and Bingo are sisters.
|
| The show is extremely good, and when my kids were around
| that age, we all watched together. Hard to explain to
| your 6 year old why you are bawling your eyes out, but it
| does lead to some important conversations. It's also an
| inspiration to be a better parent, particularly for Dads.
| Thank you Bandit.
|
| I don't know if any of this stuff will hit if you aren't
| a parent. It hits right into the heart of all those
| things people tell you "you can't understand if you don't
| have kids".
|
| It's an objectively good show though, I found myself
| watching it even when the kids weren't around. There are
| still some episodes I _can't_ watch; but you'd need to
| have had those experiences to understand.
| jeffreygoesto wrote:
| I find Peppa Pig has multiple layers and the stereotypes of
| the pig parents are actually targeted to entertain the
| human parents when they join watching.
| rkomorn wrote:
| I don't have kids so I never thought about it from that
| angle, but I really dislike how yell-y so many modern
| animated shows are. Couldn't make it through a single episode
| of Rick and Morty.
|
| I'd never thought how it might impact kids, but now that you
| mention it, I can only dislike the trend more.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Rick and Morty is absolutely _not_ a kids show.
| rkomorn wrote:
| Yes, sorry, I had a non-sequitur between my two
| sentences. The first was about modern animated shows. The
| second was about how dialog in shows (not necessarily
| Rick and Morty) could affect kids.
|
| Regardless, I also highly doubt that Rick and Morty is
| only consumed by people who are no longer susceptible to
| getting cues on how to interact with others from media.
| autoexec wrote:
| Invader Zim (2006) was a great cartoon but every character
| was basically screaming every line of dialogue
| jpadkins wrote:
| there is a reason why they call TV programming.
| virgil_disgr4ce wrote:
| > Some shows and movies seem harmless, initially, but then we
| noticed in so many kids movies (e.g., Zootopia, Sing),
| they're always yelling at each other, expressing anger,
| frustration, and hostility towards one another.
|
| Although there are definitely a ton of kids shows that I find
| 100% garbage and would never let my kids watch under any
| circumstances, none of the 'name-brand' kids movies I've seen
| in the past 10 years struck me as unacceptably negative in
| the way you describe.
|
| On the contrary, I get the impression that at least some of
| these movies are attempting to depict feelings and situations
| that some kids are feeling in a way that helps them
| understand 1) they're not alone and 2) their feelings or
| situations aren't wrong or abnormal.
|
| Like, I took my kids to see Elio when it came out. BAM, right
| off the bat, dead parents. Anger. Frustration. Fear. Power
| struggles with parental figures.
|
| This is all intentional--to the point that it's formulaic. A
| 2021 study found that slightly over 61% of the 155 animated
| kids features of the last ~80 years had no mention of the
| child protagonist's biological parents. There are a lot of
| reasons for this. The simplest are that it's way easier to
| come up with challenges and conflict for the protag(s) when
| their parents aren't around.
|
| A more charitable reason is that there are all too many kids
| who, well, do have absent or fucked up parents. But it
| doesn't have to be that specific case either--any kid
| eventually has feelings of anger, fear and frustration, and
| seeing depictions of this in stories is important (for
| everyone, of any age, at any time).
|
| I overall doubt that watching those stories causes kids to
| act angry and frustrated even when they're not angry and
| frustrated. I'm well aware of how profoundly mimetic human
| children are (and why that's important), but it doesn't
| happen with everything 100% of the time.
|
| But this is also age-dependent in various ways. An 8-year-old
| can absorb a movie depiction of a fight between child and
| parent in a way that a 3-year-old can't. Are some toddlers
| going to act out because they watched that? Maybe? Probably?
|
| Anyway, it's tricky to have these discussions because every
| child is different, even though there _are_ broad
| anthropological patterns to humanity. But I 've been more
| impressed than annoyed with lots of animated kids movies that
| I expected to loathe.
| bombcar wrote:
| Once you realize the "dead parent trick" you see it
| _everywhere_ (with variations of single parent, etc).
|
| It makes things like Bluey stand out - wow, a show that is
| entertaining and fun where you don't have to kill one or
| more parents to make it work!
| paradox460 wrote:
| My mother used to call it the "Disney story," due to it's
| utter prevalence in their media. Be it death or divorce,
| seems like you cant throw a rock at the Disney catalog
| without hitting it
| CurtHagenlocher wrote:
| One thing I always notice after trips abroad is the extent to
| which American newscasters are practically yelling at their
| audience. This is a stark contrast to many European
| countries, where the tone is calmer and more measured.
| rikthevik wrote:
| I watched Home Alone last year and the characters call each
| other names constantly. It's funny for sure, but no wonder me
| and my friends had such filthy mouths as kids. You grow up on
| that and sitcoms where the characters just rip on each other.
| It's so strange to watch as an adult.
| kcplate wrote:
| I grew up in the seventies, we didn't have the "filthy
| mouthed kids" media examples until Bad News
| Bears...however, prior to that, even without examples we
| still managed to be pretty filthy mouthed kids organically.
|
| Which came first--the chicken or the egg?
| throwworhtthrow wrote:
| Try the PBS Kids app. The shows are consistently cast with
| good role-model children and adults, without being preachy.
| Many episodes show how to resolve mistakes, frustration, and
| conflict in beneficial ways.
|
| In comparison, the behavior in the kids shows from other
| producers (Disney, Nickelodeon, etc.) sometimes presents
| nasty behavior and name-calling as either inevitable, or
| something that's "someone else's problem": the instigator, if
| they're punished at all, might suffer the wrath of an
| authority figure, or simply bad karma.
|
| My intent when choosing shows is not to hide the existence of
| bad behavior from children, but to teach them how to deal
| with it.
|
| (My children also read Calvin and Hobbes. And watch those
| less-wholesome shows. And binge-watch MrBeast when I'm not
| around...)
| jrussino wrote:
| > Try the PBS Kids app
|
| Great recommendation. Angela Collier has a recent piece on
| kids' television and PBS in particular that is worth a
| watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DGyatqN63RZ4
| JuniperMesos wrote:
| Human beings yelling at each other, expressing anger,
| frustration, and hostility towards each other, seems like a
| human universal, rather than something children would only
| learn to do from watching recent tv and movies.
| keepamovin wrote:
| The first C&H comic strip compared to the last one:
|
| https://imgur.com/a/semJX
|
| :.)
| nedrylandJP wrote:
| Fun fact - Hobbes eventually lost those little paw pads
| rrjjww wrote:
| Reading some of the compendiums with Watersons commentary
| are a really interesting look into how things changed over
| the years and an insight into comic publishing
| geephroh wrote:
| That last one still makes me tear up. What a beautiful way to
| exit the stage.
| 9dev wrote:
| I agree. It was graceful, humble, optimistic, and
| memorable. I'm hard-pressed to think of anyone else to have
| pulled that off in ending something.
| chaostheory wrote:
| They're not supposed to be pro-social. The characters are
| supposed to represent the philosophers, John Calvin
| (predestination) and Thomas Hobbes (man is an animal).
| Watterson is probably making fun of them.
| d-us-vb wrote:
| Watterson explicitly stated that the names have no relation
| to the characters' personalities or philosophical views. As
| someone familiar with John Calvin's views and writings, I can
| say safely that Calvin is not much in any way similar in
| personality or spirit to anything John Calvin ever taught or
| expressed. At best, Watterson is projecting the typical
| libertine caricature of John Calvin as a cantankerous and
| disagreeable curmudgeon onto the character. John Calvin was
| in reality quite progressive for his time, and by all
| impressions did all that he did out of love for those around
| them in line with a plain reading of scripture. But to see
| him that way requires nuance that seems to be lost on the
| anti-religious.
| adw wrote:
| The joke is that Calvin is aligned with Hobbes's philosophy
| and vice versa.
| chanakya wrote:
| What _are_ these contradictions and hypocrisies? Maybe I 'm
| just old, but I've never understood the angst younger people
| seem to have these days.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| from my familiarity with the writing of past generations and
| even past civilizations it seems reasonable to conclude that
| contradictions and hypocrisies are generally understood to
| exit. I don't think it's just down to the young people.
| recursive wrote:
| I'm curious about this too. No debate about whether they're
| generally understood, but I'm curious if anyone can name
| one.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| well one obvious contradiction is if you want peace
| prepare for war, unfortunately Bart Simpson's paradox
| doesn't seem to be in the commonly bemoaned list and I
| don't remember the rest of the paradoxes in that episode.
| next_xibalba wrote:
| I think Calvin was of a common archetype of that era. The
| sarcastic, mildly anti-heroic protagonist. And I think that
| archetype did all of us who grew up in that era and imbibed the
| culture were done a disservice. I, too, have found my way to
| respecting and admiring the pragmatic, the persistent, and even
| the earnest among us over the smart alecs and the sarcastic
| wits.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| It could have been so much worse, and did become so. Late 90s
| / early 00s had Cartman being a role model to kids.
| JuniperMesos wrote:
| Cartman was not a role model for kids, he was portrayed as
| a lazy, fat, and stupid asshole in an edgy comedy show not
| intended for children.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| He was, factually, a role model for kids. I was there.
| Everybody watched South Park, everybody thought Cartman
| was awesome.
|
| It's absurd to even deny it, Cartman was admired and
| emulated by a whole generation.
| next_xibalba wrote:
| The bottom line is, Cartman got the biggest laughs. He
| modeled that a certain type of behavior resulted in
| certain outcomes. Kids aren't stupid. They see right
| through the overt morality ("he's a jerk and he got his
| comeuppance ") to the revealed truths: being an asshole,
| in some contexts, can be very funny.
| soiltype wrote:
| Cartman typically had the most and funniest jokes and
| almost always got his way. He exercised power over others
| and only extremely rarely did the way he acted have
| negative consequences for him. That's a pretty attractive
| role model for the type of kid who's going to watch South
| Park. Role models don't have to be consciously selected,
| that's kind of the point, you see success and you imitate
| it. South Park is an especially stupid show but you'll
| see this in _plenty_ of TV - it 's basically the sitcom
| model: some character will be an asshole to everyone
| around them, but the show will frame it as a joke and
| consequence-free. The writers want you to think that
| character is funny and you probably do if you continue
| watching, so if you want to be a funny person you
| probably start acting like an asshole. Most _adults_ can
| 't see that for what it is - kids are screwed.
|
| And South Park was (is?) on TV during daytime hours, of
| course kids watched it.
| MangoToupe wrote:
| Whether or not he was intended as one is irrelevant.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Vs. the fine, upstanding young Beavis and Butt-Head were
| from the early 90's...
| 0xdeadbeefbabe wrote:
| I am earnestly inclined to double down on smart alecs and
| sarcastic wits as a matter of pragmatism.
| next_xibalba wrote:
| Ok, but will you do so persistently?
| jmdeon wrote:
| I was going to comment something similar. I think I'm about
| the same age as the commenter grew up reading C&H, and also
| had a disaffected attitude. I don't think it was Calvin that
| made me that way, but the broader media at the time. Heck,
| most kids at my school did not read it but the general way to
| be cool was to be aloof.
|
| I think it was a hangover from Gen-X and the 80's. Ferris
| Bueller was pretty aloof and angst'd to the gills wasn't he?
| kevinwang wrote:
| Well said. I feel similarly despite being born about 15 years
| later.
| zemvpferreira wrote:
| I'm the same age and also read C&H voraciously. Looking back I
| was (to a point) blueprinted on the kid, but mostly by virtue
| of being a single child, smart and alienated from most of my
| peers at school. I wish Susie gave me the time of day. Calvin
| wasn't a role model, he was an accurate portrayal. (To a point)
| sebastos wrote:
| I see what you're getting at, and your sentiment is
| thoughtfully expressed, but come on... it's Calvin and Hobbes!
| It's part of that rarefied echelon of media that taps into
| something true about the human condition. Calvin doesn't need
| to be a manual for how to live your life - it's enough to be an
| island you can sometimes visit when you're in a Calvin mood.
| vanderZwan wrote:
| Huh, I'm basically the same age as you but only started reading
| it as a teenager. It was pretty obvious to me that Calvin
| thought too highly of himself and that Hobbes was the sensible
| one. Like, the punchline of many of these comics is him being
| wrong about something but too stubborn to admit it in a funny
| way.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I love that comic.
|
| Watterson, famously, never sold out. He is sort of an idealized,
| godlike figure, to many cartoonists.
|
| Reminds me of this Onion story: https://theonion.com/peeing-
| calvin-decals-now-recognized-as-...
| danaris wrote:
| My wife and I will actually be going to an exhibition of
| Watterson's work this weekend--we're lucky enough to live not too
| far from Cooperstown, NY, where the Fenimore House Art Museum has
| the exhibition running all this fall.
|
| As an '80s kid, Calvin and Hobbes ran for almost my entire
| childhood, and we have a number of the collections. I never fail
| to be impressed either by Watterson's talent, both in the art and
| in choosing the right words to say, nor by his integrity and
| restraint, both in refusing to allow his work to be merchandised
| and in choosing to stop when he did--when he felt he had said all
| he came to say.
|
| Many more artists of all types could take so many lessons from
| him. Even some that are already great. He is a very humble man,
| but he stands among the legends of our time.
|
| Edit: realized it would be good to add a link to the exhibition:
| https://fenimoreartmuseum.org/future-exhibitions/calvin-and-...
| elicash wrote:
| A painting of a comic strip panel. Sophisticated irony.
| Philosophically challenging... "high" art.
|
| https://featureassets.gocomics.com/assets/318702d0df96013172...
|
| (I am genuinely considering a trip to Cooperstown now.)
| matthiaswh wrote:
| We were there a few weekends ago. The C&H exhibit had quite the
| crowd!
|
| It is largely a collection of original strips. You won't see
| anything new or original, that is not in one or more of the
| books. But it is interesting to see his process, to note where
| he made mistakes, to listen to everyone chuckle at one strip or
| another, and to see the progression of the characters and
| artist as you walk through the lifetime of the comic.
|
| Well worth the trip!
| alsetmusic wrote:
| What a profound and beautiful comic. The art. The storytelling.
| The expanse of Calvin's vivid imagination.
|
| Every day, I have a reminder to think of three things for which
| I'm grateful. I was just trying to find the third for today when
| I saw this headline.
|
| I am grateful that I love my tattoos (and have no regret, which
| is the risk of tattoos), one of which is Stupendous Man. He was
| the first and it's because CnH holds such a special place in my
| heart. The comic largely shaped my childhood.
|
| Bill Waterson had the integrity not to license his work,
| preferring that the reader not have the characters spoiled. He
| opted not to make boatloads of money in making this decision
| (cough, garfield, snoopy). He also declared that Sunday papers
| could print his comic unbroken or they could drop him and this
| allowed for truly magnificent art pieces where stories could be
| told in new ways. His integrity is legendary in the field.
|
| Check out his recent work, The Mysteries.
|
| https://www.comicsbeat.com/graphic-novel-review-bill-watters...
| TheAmazingRace wrote:
| Bill also ended the strip exactly ten years after he started.
| Frankly, I appreciated his honesty and integrity around the
| strip. The comic stuck around just long enough to leave a lasting
| impression but never too long to overstay its welcome.
| irrational wrote:
| As a kid, I had no idea they would someday print books, so each
| day I cut out the strip from the newspaper and paste it into a
| book. I'm sure my mom threw it away decades ago, but I wish I
| still had it.
| khy wrote:
| Watterson serves as one of the symbols of an era when selling out
| was considered a great sin. It makes me laugh how thoroughly that
| idea - that selling out is bad - has been defeated.
|
| That being said, I'm sure he would've done it the same way today.
| jwineinger wrote:
| Calvin and Hobbes was the only comic I ever truly loved and
| collected. All of the books are well-worn from my childhood. They
| sat on a shelf for a couple of decades, and now I get to enjoy
| watching my kids fall in love with them too.
|
| I don't think I fully appreciated the range of humor and topics
| Bill Watterson explored when I was young. Plenty of strips are
| perfect for my 9 year old; she was in fits of laughter just
| yesterday at Hobbes's physical comedy and the elementary school
| drama with Susie and Mrs Wormwood. But other strips are much more
| intellectual, touching on politics, life, and morality. I
| appreciate these more now as well, because they often spark
| deeper conversations with my kids when they ask me to explain
| them.
|
| I doubt he'll ever see it, but thank you, Bill, for giving
| multiple generations so much laughter.
| dcchambers wrote:
| I was born in 92 and thus didn't start reading them until after
| the original run of Calvin and Hobbes, but I discovered these
| comics via book collections at the library and became OBSESSED.
|
| I am so incredibly happy that Watterson never "sold out" and gave
| away film/animation rights to his characters. They are _perfect_
| the way they are.
| takinola wrote:
| C&H was the first time that I realized how authenticity resonates
| with people. I think people love C&H because they recognize
| Calvin, Hobbes, Suzie, Biff, the parents (or even Rosalyn) in
| themselves. Calvin often said the things that we thought only
| ourselves were thinking (remember the strip where Calvin is
| selling swift kicks in the pants for 10c because the world
| clearly needs it?).
|
| Now, I see this technique work so well for business and political
| leaders, comics, social commentators, etc. It is a very effective
| technique to capture the hearts of your audience.
| JadeNB wrote:
| The title got mangled from the grammatically correct "40 years
| ago, Calvin and Hobbes' raucous adventures burst onto the comics
| page" (though some of us learned "Hobbes's" in elementary school)
| to "40 years ago, Calvin and Hobbes' burst onto the page" (the '
| definitely doesn't belong).
| dingaling wrote:
| It's curious that of all the famous American syndicated strips,
| only The Far Side, and maybe Garfield, seem to have bridged the
| Atlantic divide to the UK.
|
| Maybe C&H and Peanuts were just too rooted in US suburban family
| culture. Dilbert had a niche following here and beyond that I
| struggle to even name another strip.
| rullelito wrote:
| I think it was quite big in Sweden.
| hocuspocus wrote:
| When I was a kid, C&H strips were translated and published by
| the main newspaper in Geneva.
|
| The "complete" box set is the first thing I ordered from Amazon
| US as a teenager, in 2000 or 2001 iirc.
| thunderbong wrote:
| A bit off-topic, but it's been increasingly tough to view Calvin
| and Hobbes on the internet.
|
| Gocomics seems to go after everyone who posts these comic strips
| on a regular basis.
|
| The C&H sub-reddit stopped posting some time ago. [0]
|
| The only C&H Search out there is not allowed to show the strips
| and instead redirects to Gocomics. [1]
|
| Here's a blog post by S. Anand detailing some background on the
| takedown notice he received, although he doesn't mention who sent
| it. [2]
|
| I feel saddened that the one comic strip that resisted
| commercialization has to have its fans face this.
|
| But I suppose that's the nature of the web now.
|
| [0]:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/calvinandhobbes/comments/1m8j09a/th...
|
| [1]: https://michaelyingling.com/random/calvin_and_hobbes/
|
| [2]: https://www.s-anand.net/blog/the-calvin-and-hobbes-search-
| ta...
| mikkupikku wrote:
| You might as well torrent/etc the books, no sense with using
| web middlemen who get takedowns because they don't have the
| rights either. Direct piracy gives you a better experience than
| indirect piracy.
|
| (You should also buy real copies if you still can, because
| they're great.)
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > (You should also buy real copies if you still can, because
| they're great.)
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Calvin-Hobbes-Box-
| Set/dp/074...
|
| I got this when it came out. It's absolutely amazing, filled
| with commentary from Bill Watterson.
|
| I've read the whole set twice, but it's been at least 15
| years. I should read it again.
| dan-bailey wrote:
| Thirty-two years ago, I got them tattooed onto my leg, the day
| after I arrived at Ft. Bragg, NC. It's faded and blurred out from
| the waxing and waning of muscle tone in my calf, and sunlight,
| and the occasional scrape from crashing the bike. But it's been
| part of me for so long, the only real option left is to get it
| lasered-down and redone.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Someone wrote drew a one-off followup cartoon that nearly broke
| me:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/calvinandhobbes/comments/6vwll2/is_...
| lghh wrote:
| It nearly breaks me, too. It breaks me because it stigmatizes
| medication that has helped make me function in a world not
| designed for me. It breaks me because it stigmatizes medication
| that on average is going to let me enjoy being on this earth ~7
| more years than I otherwise would be.
| kstrauser wrote:
| I'm there with you on that, but... there's a time and place
| for it. I hate that our schools are designed around "sit
| down, shut up, and toil in silence for a few hours straight",
| and treat those of us with ADHD as mutants which have to be
| medicated to fit in.
| Balgair wrote:
| Montessori Method schools, my friend. Or Waldorf. There's
| likely a school near you that is public and uses these
| methods. If not, there are scholarships too. It's not for
| everyone, but for all the Calvins it's a godsend.
| kstrauser wrote:
| We sent our kids through Montessori. Unfortunately, in
| the city where we lived when they were elementary school
| age, Montessori went through 4th grade before the kids
| had to go back to regular or religious schools. That was
| a rough transition.
|
| But I still think that's a sucky situation for the 95% of
| kids who go to the nearest public school. Their days
| shouldn't be awful just because their parents didn't have
| the time, money, or awareness to consider non-default
| options.
| stack_framer wrote:
| I always loved that Bill Watterson gave Calvin an extensive
| vocabulary. He didn't dumb it down. Instead, he allowed young
| readers like me to learn new words as I read along.
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| We didn't have C&H in France when I was a kid in the 80s. I
| discovered it at the university through a German girlfriend who
| said that she's kniwn it for some time already.
|
| It is interesting how some random things from far away just used
| to catch in a country, but not in the neighbour one.
|
| Our nr 1 hero at that time was Goldorak - everyone who is in
| their 50s today can sing the intro song (at least the first line)
| and knows a few of the attacks. Girls had Candy but we were
| absolutely watching it as well (I actually don't know if girls
| were watching Goldorak, I need to ask)
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