Redartz: Hello, pop culture fans! For this episode of "Off the Bookshelf", we pull a collection of a truly landmark comic strip, originating from the tail end of our beloved Bronze Age. Debuting in 1985, "Calvin and Hobbes" detailed the adventures and imaginations of Calvin, a young, mischievous (Very mischievous) boy and his tiger friend Hobbes. The strip was the creation of the hugely talented Bill Watterson, who made the comic a joy both visually and intellectually. It was both a cogent recollection of childhood, and an evocative commentary on adulthood. A pretty good trick for a newspaper strip.
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| Calvin as superhero Stupendous Man |
Calvin's life is filled with all the triumphs and troubles every kid goes through, and Watterson remembers every detail. Calvin has a powerful weapon against the challenges of a 20th. century child's world: a vivid imagination. He faces off against teachers, bullies, neighbor kids, parents, and babysitters with a great range of approaches. Calvin may be a spaceman, a dinosaur, an insect. He makes a time machine, a cloning machine. His snowman-building is an art in itself, always executed with Calvin's unique approaches.
Calvin's greatest ally in all this is his stuffed tiger Hobbes. Hobbes is the voice of common sense and reason to Calvin's chaotic nature. The best of friends, they complement each other and together try to figure out, and to simply enjoy, the mysteries of this world we live in. Of course, they also engage in wild fights and suicidal schemes. Calvin often ends up on the short end of argument with Hobbes, his youthful human nature being a weakness. Hobbes, on the other hand, is rather proud of his non-human status, and seldom fails to rub that fact in. There were some folks who debated whether Hobbes was 'real'. He was real to Calvin, and he was certainly real to me. Question answered.
The strip itself covered an astounding spectrum of issues. The logic (and illogic) of sports. School, youthful crushes, science fiction. The pleasures and miseries of camping. There is no way I can adequately describe all that Watterson touched on in this strip. But he did so with great wit and humor. And, at times, with poignancy (as when Calvin faces the death of a baby animal he found). And at other times, with a rather sharp edge of satire (as Calvin and Hobbes ponder the inanities of the 'adult' world).
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| Calvin the T-Rex |
And at times, the artwork truly shines with subtlety and sensitivity: I discovered this strip in our local newspaper right after college, and was an instant addict. I followed Calvin and Hobbes through ten years of thought-provoking enjoyment. When Watterson retired the strip in December 1995, I (along with millions of others) was devastated. The strip touched me like no other ever had, with the possible exception of "Peanuts". Calvin and Hobbes entertained me, educated me, inspired me. I dreaded the thought of losing all that.
But the pain of losing that daily dose of boy and tiger was lessened: Andrews and McMeel was wise enough to publish collected editions of the daily strips, starting in 1987. Nicely produced, on good stock, the books make Watterson's art even finer. A particular favorite of mine is "Calvin and Hobbes' Lazy Sunday Book". All Sunday strips, with bountiful coloring. You really get the feel of Spaceman Spiff as he zooms across some ravaged planetscape. Plus, Watterson starts off the volume with some great illustrations of Calvin in action. A great package; the only downside is that I can't pick it up and just peruse a strip or two. I always get caught up and have to read it through.
Several of these books grace my bookshelf (several, but not yet enough). Those wonderful collected volumes keep Calvin and Hobbes nearby, always and forever. Thank heavens for that...
14 comments:
Good morning!
I second the affection felt towards Calvin and Hobbes! My kids, born after the strip ended, have enjoyed the hard-cover collection I have, too. Somewhere, I have stuck in a drawer, his daily strip with Calvin eating "Sugar cluster bomb" cereal b/c it had me laughing so hard.
Below are tangential musings...
I've always, always felt that Watterson could become the nation's next John T. McCutcheon the "Dean of American Cartoonists." McCutcheon is perhaps best known for his drawing "Indian (Injun) Summer" which appeared annually as a full-page Sunday spread in the Tribune, during the Indian Summer days of October though he won a Pulitzer for political cartoons.
As a family, we still read the Sunday Tribune comics often, though it is a fraction of 20 years ago. For what it's worth Joe Staton (E-Man, GL, etc.) is doing Dick Tracy! And in the local Graham Cracker's comic shop in Downers Grove, IL, the previous artist to Dick Tracy, Jim Brozman, works. Really nice fellow. Being a comic artist is a tuff business.)
Correction to the above. I just had to reread the strip and it is actually "Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs." The internet shows "Hershey's Chocolate Covered Sugar Bombs Breakfast Cereal" so now I wonder if this was even in the grocery store?
I LOVED Calvin & Hobbes and was crushed when it ended. I found a site several years ago that had collected all of the strips and was able to go through all of them (wish I could remember the site's name). For years, I had a copy of the "Swift Kick in the Butt" strip on the door to my office. :). I can remember laughing out loud at the arc where Calvin's mom had him sitting for pictures and he'd make the goofy faces just as the camera clicked. Those were tons of fun.
I discovered Calvin & Hobbes in a review by Don Thompson in CBG - the Comics Buyers Guide. The strip was not available in my local newspaper, but I was able to buy the collected strips as they came out in the late '80s. I also purchased wall calendars to enjoy. Though I respect Watterson's choice not to flood the market with merchandise, I would love to have some sort of representation on my bookshelves or Christmas tree with a figurine or ornament.
C&H has become a nice part of our lives. My wife and I have all the trade collections - including an extra copy of a few, so they can become dog-eared from numerous readings of visiting friends and relatives - and still read reprintings every morning with our daily comic strip perusals.
A few years ago, we contributed to the making of an interesting documentary called, "Finding Mr. Watterson" and got to see a showing of it at a local college campus here in St. Louis. It's very interesting and worth tracking down.
I definitely have favorite comic strips - Peanuts, For Better or For Worse, Frank 'n' Ernest being a very small fraction - but Calvin will always be right up there in the top choices.
Calvin and Hobbes. Three highlights:
1. Snowmen
2. integrity
3. A beautiful picture called 'The Future' in which an adult Calvin waves Hobbes away with a young child. The byline - 'Don't put away childish things. Save them for your child.'
I find that deeply affecting.
Charlie Horse 47- thanks for the note on Joe Staton. I have always held him in high regard; glad to learn he is still producing regularly.
Disneymarvel- Fascinating that you contributed to "Finding Mr. Watterson"! I saw that, and found it quite interesting.
Colin Bray- by integrity, I presume you refer to Watterson's avoidance of merchandising ( that Disneymarvel mentioned), and his stances on creative production of the strip. He did have some controversial face offs with the syndicate. Watterson strove to maintain the artistic integrity of the strip and of its appearance on the printed page. If one compares the relative scale of comic strips in the 50's and those today, one can understand and appreciate his concerns.
And that image you describe of an adult Calvin, where is that from? Perhaps from a strip I missed somewhere?
Red - yes, by integrity I meant precisely that. As Disneymarvel mentioned, his stance can have frustrating consequences. But Watterson must have a super-strong personality to resist the corporate pressure. I feel the same way about Fugazi - sure, it would be nice to have a band t-shirt. But the principle of the thing is more important.
I'll email the image across in case you wish to post it here.
Am I the only guy here who, like Calvin, tied a towel around his neck as a little kid with a safety pin and jumped off chairs?
Of course in my case, it was a Dracula thing, not a superhero thing.
M.P.
MP I didn't tie a towel but i tried my best to replicate his snowmen especially the one holding its own head! Never worked LOL. but hope springs eternal!
I too really liked Calvin and Hobbes. It is really amazing how a great comic strip can bring families together to have discussions and share laughter. I can remember my family sitting around the dining room table talking about that day's Calvin and Hobbes.
MP - my mom was constantly being pestered to pin a blanket to my t-shirt so I'd have a cape. Jumping off the top bunk was nearly a daily activity.
And CH47 - this past year I saw a snowman that was cleverly modeled very similarly - some trick of the snowman trade I suppose. Ha.
M.P., I wore the towel, too. Sometimes, I'd still like to. :)
Graham, maybe I should take it up again!
M.P.
Towel loosely tied around the neck, sprint to the end of the pier and launch off into the lake. Why this would be fun for two hours at a stretch, I cannot quite retain a grasp of. . . ha!
Oh yes, we ALL loved this strip in our family as well. I believe we have all of the original mass-market collections. And geeze, the heartbreak when Watterson announced he was retiring the strip, but-- I guess I get it. That "next" generation of genius comic strip creators (figure Gary Larson, Watterson, Berk Breathed, among others) would have seen some of the great strips that they grew up with, like Peanuts, BC, Wizard of Id, Beetle Bailey, hit their comic peek, and then go into a years-long decline-- becoming less and less amusing as they lost their edge. These strips were themselves once the hot, new offerings on the comics page, but they finally became fossilized to some degree. Sometimes great things really do have a finite life-span. (Like the Beatles, say--)
This is an immense shift in attitude for me. I was as angry as anyone that any of these guys would deprive the public of such much-needed quality on the comics pages. But that responsibility does not rest with them. It rests with a public and industry that needs to provide a platform for young, inspired cartoonists to produce their work and gain recognition.
But that's probably a whole 'nother conversation.
I've matured to a point where I appreciate the body of work that Watterson gave to us all, and am utterly grateful for it.
HB
The great things are always universal...I've found it in Shakespeare. You look at it and go, "Yeah, I recognize that. The writer is talking about me."
M.P.
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