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'Calvin and Hobbes' at 40

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Re: 'Calvin and Hobbes' at 40

#2

Post by WillAdams »

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.

Re: 'Calvin and Hobbes' at 40

#5

Post by adolph »

WillAdams wrote: post #2

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 re…

> 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.

Re: 'Calvin and Hobbes' at 40

#6

Post by SanjayMehta »

WillAdams wrote: post #2

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 re…

> 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.

Re: 'Calvin and Hobbes' at 40

#7

Post by HeinzStuckeIt »

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.

Re: 'Calvin and Hobbes' at 40

#8

Post by minihat »

WillAdams wrote: post #2

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 re…

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.

Re: 'Calvin and Hobbes' at 40

#10

Post by conartist6 »

andix wrote: post #4

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...

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
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