Calvin and Hobbes

[crucialityfactor]

Can't believe it took me this long to find this thread.

I was raised on C & H. I can't count how many times I read Weirdos or Attack when I was a child. Every few months I go back and read through a collection or two. It always amazes me how each comic can have so much different meaning depending on what stage of life you're in.

It's strange though, the one piece from C & H that sticks with me the most is a poem from the Indispensible Treasury:

Spoiler:

I made a big decision a little while ago.
I don't remember what it was, which prob'ly goes to show
That many times a simple choice can prove to be essential
Even though it often might appear inconsequential.

I must have been distracted when I left my home because
Left or right I'm sure I went. (I wonder which it was!)
Anyway, I never veered: I walked in that direction
Utterly absorbed, it seems, in quiet introspection.

For no reason I can think of, I've wandered far astray.
And that is how I got to where I find myself today.

All that being said, while I can agree with Watterson's reasoning for not wanting to exploit his work...there is nothing in this world that I would not give for a Hobbes stuffed animal.

[MotorToad]

All that being said, while I can agree with Watterson's reasoning for not wanting to exploit his work...there is nothing in this world that I would not give for a Hobbes stuffed animal.

I'd rather have Hobbes the friend.

[ameretrifle]

Ditto to everyone. I've always ADORED Calvin and Hobbes. I've got practically the whole collection in paperback, and was reading them since before I can remember (certainly before I quite understood all of the jokes). What strikes me is, I loved them then, and I love them even more now. You can't say that's not art.

I wanted a Hobbes too. I don't blame him for not licensing them, though. And since you mention poems, this is what popped into my head--

This is a poem!
Please do as you're told!
And this is a bucket
Of water, ice-cold!

Please take this water
And dump it on me!
Don't hesitate!
Do it ASAP!

Not the most profound philosophical moment, but I just love the expression Susie gets in that next panel...

[charliepanayi]

Love Calvin and Hobbes. The snowmen 'art' that Calvin makes always crack me up.

[PatrickRsGhost]

I wanted a Hobbes too. I don't blame him for not licensing them, though. And since you mention poems, this is what popped into my head--

This is a poem!
Please do as you're told!
And this is a bucket
Of water, ice-cold!

Please take this water
And dump it on me!
Don't hesitate!
Do it ASAP!

Not the most profound philosophical moment, but I just love the expression Susie gets in that next panel...

Just wait till YOU touch the "pernicious poem place"!! Oooh, you'll be sorry THEN!

I loved the expression on her face in the next panel. Revenge, sweet revenge.

[MysticalChicken]

Can't believe it took me this long to find this thread.

I was raised on C & H. I can't count how many times I read Weirdos or Attack when I was a child. Every few months I go back and read through a collection or two. It always amazes me how each comic can have so much different meaning depending on what stage of life you're in.

It's strange though, the one piece from C & H that sticks with me the most is a poem from the Indispensible Treasury:

Spoiler:

I made a big decision a little while ago.
I don't remember what it was, which prob'ly goes to show
That many times a simple choice can prove to be essential
Even though it often might appear inconsequential.

I must have been distracted when I left my home because
Left or right I'm sure I went. (I wonder which it was!)
Anyway, I never veered: I walked in that direction
Utterly absorbed, it seems, in quiet introspection.

For no reason I can think of, I've wandered far astray.
And that is how I got to where I find myself today.

All that being said, while I can agree with Watterson's reasoning for not wanting to exploit his work...there is nothing in this world that I would not give for a Hobbes stuffed animal.

I have the two books that the treasury is made up of, The Revenge of the Baby-Sat and Scientific Progress Goes Boink, but I don't have that treasury and this is the first time I've read that poem. For some reason it made me cry.

Anyway, I got my first Calvin and Hobbes book, The Essential Calvin and Hobbes, for Christmas when I was eight years old. I still have it, twenty-one years later (in fact I was reading it the other day). When I was a kid, most of Calvin's vocabulary was over my head, but I still loved the strip. One of my all-time favorite C&H stories is when Calvin has to be an onion for the school play and he gets stuck in his costume. I actually lost the book between the ages of about 12 and 25. I searched everywhere in the house for it, for years, to no avail. Long story short, we finally found it in a box stored in the basement when we were cleaning up to move out of the house I grew up in. So I still have my original copy. Over the years, I collected all the other C&H books as well--some treasuries, some not. For some weird reason, my copy of It's a Magical World is missing the entire final Rosalyn story and a few strips after that. The pages weren't torn out, they just weren't put in in the first place. So I found that archive site mentioned on I think the first page and downloaded my missing strips. I actually didn't even notice they were not there until I realised the book skipped from page 93 to page 120-something.

This is my all-time favorite Calvin and Hobbes strip, which I recite in my head every single time I make hot cocoa:

Calvin: The secret to making great hot chocolate is to put the tiny marshmallows in first.
Hobbes: So they melt faster?
Calvin: No, so you can fit in forty or fifty of them. This way the hot chocolate just fills in the cracks.
Hobbes: I wondered why you eat it with a fork.
Calvin: Also, I don't use milk. I just heat the syrup.

One or the other of these runs through my head every time I make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich:

(Calvin, sitting at the table, is yelling to his mom, who is off-panel)
Calvin: How's my peanut butter sandwich coming? You're using chunky peanut butter, right? I won't eat smooth! Make it an open-face sandwich, too! Don't put any jelly on it or anything. And use some normal bread! I don't like those weird grain breads! Did you cut it diagonally? I like triangles better than rectangles, so be sure to cut it right!
Calvin's mom (setting the sandwich on the table): Your majesty's sandwich.
Calvin: HEY! This is a closed-face, horizontally-cut, smooth peanut butter sandwich on weird bread with jelly! Weren't you LISTENING?

(Calvin is looking aghast into a jar of peanut butter)
Calvin: Aaugh! The peanut butter is ruined! You're supposed to scoop one half straight down and then dig out the other side from the bottom, so part of the top remains undisturbed until the very end!
Calvin's mom (perplexed): What on earth for?
Calvin (as if this should be completely obvious): It's a ritual! You have to keep the top of the peanut butter smooth!
Calvin's mom: Maybe you should make your own sandwiches.
Calvin: If you can't control your peanut butter, you can't expect to control your life. Did you cut the bread diagonally?

I quote Calvin's "If you can't control your peanut butter, you can't expect to control your life" constantly.

[Allium Cepa]

It's strange though, the one piece from C & H that sticks with me the most is a poem from the Indispensible Treasury:

Spoiler:

I made a big decision a little while ago.
I don't remember what it was, which prob'ly goes to show
That many times a simple choice can prove to be essential
Even though it often might appear inconsequential.

I must have been distracted when I left my home because
Left or right I'm sure I went. (I wonder which it was!)
Anyway, I never veered: I walked in that direction
Utterly absorbed, it seems, in quiet introspection.

For no reason I can think of, I've wandered far astray.
And that is how I got to where I find myself today.

I love all of his poems, I can't remember which book it is from, but the one when it is Christmas Eve and he is laying in front of the fire with Hobbes is really good. Also, the complete hardback collection has a lot of cool commentary from Waterson, I recomend picking it up.

[Chfan]

I love Calvin and Hobbes to death.

I wasn't raised on it, but I discovered it and it quickly became my favorite comic. I now have all the books and the complete collection, and I still love it. I just wish Bill Watterson would release all his old work, like the stuff he published in the complete collection.

[Alder]

Aaaaaah, Calvin and Hobbes. They make me so hap-peeee...

The paper my mum bought when I was 11/12 ran the strip, and I can remember coming home every day at lunchtime to grab the paper and read the next instalment of the snow goons story. When it came to the one where he was creeping downstairs to go out and get the snow goons...and then the last panel is his mum and dad waking out of a clearly deep sleep to the sound of Calvin yelling "DIE, SNOW GOONS! DIE!!!" - I laughed so much I went weak at the knees and couldn't stand up... Great days.

And the advantage of being grown-up is that you can buy this - http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASI ... eda3482-21 - and no-one can tell you it's a waste of money particularly when you have all the compilations and some of the original black and white ones too!!!

Well, they can tell you. But you don't have to listen.

[Mighty Jalapeno]

I got



from my son. WOOO!

[MotorToad]

Thought you folks might enjoy this one.

[Mighty Jalapeno]

AUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Allium Cepa]

Hahaha, awesome.

Too bad they have to be stomped on now.

[drewster1829]

Nice work, MotorToad...reminded me of the one with Calvin on his roof, and one little snowman on the edge, and Calvin says something like "The crowd below began to chant 'jump, jump'"

Calvin and Hobbes makes me smile. Some have criticized Watterson for ending the comic at its peak, but I believe this is a far better result than it turning into an inane piece of worthless drivel, like some other comics (i.e., Family Circus) have years ago. I used to read C&H as a kid, and I was pretty disappointed when he quit, but now I understand why.

Plus, now that I'm older, it brings a new level of understanding to the strip. To be able to read them as both a child and an adult gives an understand not available otherwise, IMO, since it gives two different perspectives, two different points of view. At least, that improves the situation for me, since I can't remember what it was like to be a kid.

[MotorToad]

This week in C&H news...

[PatrickRsGhost]

Stumbled on this picture today. Spoiler'd due to ultra-mega-depressing theme.

Spoiler:

[Chfan]

Ehh, it's not that depressing and I should know (some allergy commercials make me think my life is sad). If it's Calvin's kid, won't he see Hobbes anyway? Unless he's abandoning her...

[PatrickRsGhost]

Ehh, it's not that depressing and I should know (some allergy commercials make me think my life is sad). If it's Calvin's kid, won't he see Hobbes anyway? Unless he's abandoning her...

I was thinking of that this morning. It's possible that she's his child, and he's passing Hobbes down to her. I think what's sad is the expression on Hobbes' face, looking back at Calvin. The first time I saw the picture, I was thinking that Hobbes was donated to some second-hand store, where he was purchased by the little girl's parents.

But it's possible she's Calvin's daughter. If all cartoon/comic strip characters aged in real time, Calvin would be in his late-20s/early 30s, so it's possible he would have gotten married and had a family.

Is it me, or does the girl look like a cross between Calvin and Susie? Hmmm........

[Chfan]

I think thay was the idea in the first place. It looks a lot like Susie.

[BMW787]

Ehh, it's not that depressing and I should know (some allergy commercials make me think my life is sad). If it's Calvin's kid, won't he see Hobbes anyway? Unless he's abandoning her...

I was thinking of that this morning. It's possible that she's his child, and he's passing Hobbes down to her. I think what's sad is the expression on Hobbes' face, looking back at Calvin. The first time I saw the picture, I was thinking that Hobbes was donated to some second-hand store, where he was purchased by the little girl's parents.

But it's possible she's Calvin's daughter. If all cartoon/comic strip characters aged in real time, Calvin would be in his late-20s/early 30s, so it's possible he would have gotten married and had a family.

Is it me, or does the girl look like a cross between Calvin and Susie? Hmmm........

I thought it was his daughter as well. The part that made me sad though was it seemed Hobbes knew he wouldnt be playing with Calvin anymore because he grew up.

[Naurgul]

Question: If you could choose only one of the albums to give to someone who doesn't know anything about C&H, which one would it be? What if that someone preferred coloured comics to black & white?

[Chfan]

Well, it really depends- Calvin and Hobbes evolved a lot as time went on. In its early stages, Calvin's imagination factored in a lot but there were no recurring themes, later on the characters' personalities started to develop and the strip began to get a slightly more serious tone, and near the sad, sad end the art became very pretty, but the comic had become more serious as well (not too much, I'm just saying.) So, for that reason, I'd probably pick a later one such as Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat or There's Treasure Everywhere or even It's a Magical World.

[SecondTalon]

But it's possible she's Calvin's daughter.

You mean the blond chap in the red and black shirt back there, waving at the blond girl who kinda looks like Calvin walking around isn't Calvin?

[Chfan]

No, it is. The girl walking away with Hobbes, however, is his daughter.

[cephalopod9]

Well, it really depends- Calvin and Hobbes evolved a lot as time went on. In its early stages, Calvin's imagination factored in a lot but there were no recurring themes, later on the characters' personalities started to develop and the strip began to get a slightly more serious tone, and near the sad, sad end the art became very pretty, but the comic had become more serious as well (not too much, I'm just saying.) So, for that reason, I'd probably pick a later one such as Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat or There's Treasure Everywhere or even It's a Magical World.

Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat is one of the first things I remember ever reading. Had to have been the first comic I read because I remember trying to figure out how to put the word bubbles and pictures together.

Dang, somebody teach Bill Watterson about the internet.
He could totally stick with his old school comic style, adorableness and all. Hot topic might steal your idea for a t-shirt, but you can sue them.
Siiiiigh. It is probably not going to happen.
Art Spiegal, author of Maus and other good stuff, spoke at my University a little while ago. Someone asked what he thought of webcomics, his answer seemed basically that it seemed cool, but was new and confusing. Although Watterson is younger, I kind of get the impression most traditional comics artists would feel that way.
and no one can tell him what to do.

[Chfan]

I actually want to go on a pilgrimage to Chagrin Falls when I get old enough to make pilgrimages.

[SecondTalon]

No, it is. The girl walking away with Hobbes, however, is his daughter.

Er.. I know. Hence the direction of the question (which was meant as a rhetorical one) at...ah, forget it.

Dang, somebody teach Bill Watterson about the internet.

Who says he doesn't already know, and that he is not, as we speak, walking amongst us?

I actually want to go on a pilgrimage to Chagrin Falls when I get old enough to make pilgrimages.

Just don't fuck it up for the rest of us like the eBay assholes did.

Quick Version - Bill would sneak into bookstores and sign copies of Calvin & Hobbes books (maybe sketches and witty sayings too, I don't know) so that an unsuspecting buyer would get a nice surprise when they opened it up later. It was meant as a gift from him, the author, to the buyer.

He cut that shit out when they started showing up on eBay and people started camping* the stores.


*I mean that in the MMO sense - of checking the books ever couple of days to see if he'd been there, buying signed copies and selling them on eBay, not literally camping outside waiting for him.

[Naurgul]

He cut that shit out when they started showing up on eBay and people started camping* the stores.


*I mean that in the MMO sense - of checking the books ever couple of days to see if he'd been there, buying signed copies and selling them on eBay, not literally camping outside waiting for him.

Really? Aww, humans can be so cruel.

[Alder]

Question: If you could choose only one of the albums to give to someone who doesn't know anything about C&H, which one would it be? What if that someone preferred coloured comics to black & white?

It would probably beeeeeeeee...either...Revenge of the Baby-Sat, or Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons.

The first because that was the first we ever owned, and I loved it.
The second because I remember the fortnight or so that strip ran in the paper (I was about 11 at the time) and I'd hurry home every day at lunch time to read it, and when it came to the "Die, snow goons, die!" line, I laughed so much that I quite literally couldn't stand up. It was brilliant...


Also, the 'sad' picture? I didn't find it so sad. Maybe a little bit for Hobbes. But passing on your imagination to your kids has to be one of the best things ever.

[Chfan]

Wow. He seriously used to do that? Fuck you, humanity.

[SecondTalon]

Wow. He seriously used to do that? Fuck you, humanity.

While I admit to a bit of artistic license with the visual of people camping the store...
Yes, he used to do that. (search for Fireside Books) - date of that article is 1998.
This place also retells the story.

In the mid-1990s, Bill's mom used to get boxes of books and take them to his house for him to sign, then the shop would quietly place them on the shelf for lucky fans to discover. Sadly, online auction speculators and book re-sellers heard about the place and began buying up every autographed book that appeared. Watterson ceased signing and the fans were all the worse off for it. Thanks again to the greedy people.

[Orca]

I love Calvin and Hobbes, as a teenager I find it wonderful in all forms myself.
Having read the comic Red & Rover, it reminds me a bit of Calvin & Hobbes. Anyone else notice this?

[Chfan]

Yes, and it's a terrible strip. The comparison has been made, with the exception that Calvin and Hobbes is good.

[hideki101]

I kinda thought Frazz was more in the vein of C&H because of the sarcastic, hyper-intellectual-but-somewhat-devoid-of-common-sense kids and the stressed out teachers.

[Ellimist]

Oooh! Calvin and Hobbes!

Dunno if I'm allowed to post it here, but here goes on of my favourites :


This post had objectionable content.Yeah.. that.. probably goes above and beyond the Fair Use doctrine. Removed pending review. -ST

[Chuff]

Today I bought my first Calvin and Hobbes collection, "Scientific Progress Goes Boink."

[Mighty Jalapeno]

Today I bought my first Calvin and Hobbes collection, "Scientific Progress Goes Boink."

Welcome to my son's favorite book.

[Clumpy]

Kind of a surreal thread to come into after finding this site full of old, odd Bill Watterson political cartoons and sketches.

I found "There's Treasure Everywhere" at the bookstore on sale for $5 last week and picked it up. I had assumed I was so familiar with every C&H book that I knew them all from memory, so it was odd to read a Calvin and Hobbes book with which I was completely unfamiliar. Turns out I only have Bloom County memorized .

Does anybody else think that the webcomic Cyanide and Happiness was titled in an attempt to capture subconsciously the appeal of Watterson's magnum opus?

EDIT: I don't know the band in question, but I want this shirt Bill created for his brother's band:

[PatrickRsGhost]

Today I bought my first Calvin and Hobbes collection, "Scientific Progress Goes Boink."

Welcome to my son's favorite book.

And the very first book Calvin and Hobbes I ever bought. I remember buying it in school, but as far as how is the fuzzy part. I either bought it through the yearly Scholastic Book Fair held in our library, or else I ordered it through the Scholastic catalog my Maths teacher received monthly. I think I ordered a ton of books and other stuff through that thing, including "Scientific Progress", a handful of Ramona Quimby books, and a few others. My grandma bought me "Indispensable Calvin and Hobbes" for Christmas in 1992 or 1993, a friend gave me "Something Under The Bed is Drooling", and I bought the others at various outlets/locations:

Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat - Kroger or K-Mart
10th Anniversary Collection - at some bookstore in Washington, DC while on a field trip
Essential Calvin and Hobbes - some bookstore
Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes - some bookstore
There's Treasure Everywhere - got through Intertubes for subscribing to GoComics.com
It's A Magical World - bought somewhere
Weirdos From Another Planet - bought at some bookstore
The Complete Calvin and Hobbes (hardback collection) - Borders

[Chuff]

Today I bought my first Calvin and Hobbes collection, "Scientific Progress Goes Boink."

Welcome to my son's favorite book.

And the very first book Calvin and Hobbes I ever bought. I remember buying it in school, but as far as how is the fuzzy part. I either bought it through the yearly Scholastic Book Fair held in our library, or else I ordered it through the Scholastic catalog my Maths teacher received monthly. I think I ordered a ton of books and other stuff through that thing, including "Scientific Progress", a handful of Ramona Quimby books, and a few others. My grandma bought me "Indispensable Calvin and Hobbes" for Christmas in 1992 or 1993, a friend gave me "Something Under The Bed is Drooling", and I bought the others at various outlets/locations:

Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat - Kroger or K-Mart
10th Anniversary Collection - at some bookstore in Washington, DC while on a field trip
Essential Calvin and Hobbes - some bookstore
Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes - some bookstore
There's Treasure Everywhere - got through Intertubes for subscribing to GoComics.com
It's A Magical World - bought somewhere
Weirdos From Another Planet - bought at some bookstore
The Complete Calvin and Hobbes (hardback collection) - Borders

I picked it up at a local Comic Book Store while I was there for a free comic book.