Sometimes I get in a mood to blog about things I love, and this post is no exception, although I usually try to find things that I love and share that aren't commonly known, and this is a post about something that most people have heard of and love, but I wanted to share my love for it. I am talking about the comic strip, Calvin and Hobbes.
Calvin and Hobbes isn't just something I love. I am obsessed with it. I love old newspaper comic strips, and though my favorites aren't around anymore, I still love them, and Calvin and Hobbes is at the top of my favorites list. I think it also helps that while this comic strip was in it's original run, I was around the same age as Calvin was for a little while.
The strip lasted ten years, and though that sounds like a long time, especially when there was a brand new strip every single day for almost that whole time, there was a time near the end of the strip where there were a few weeks that had previously released strips while the creator, writer and artist, Bill Watterson, was taking some time to figure out if he wanted to keep going or not, and eventually decided to end the strip.
I remember reading the very last strip in the newspaper....not the internet, but the newspaper, and shed a couple of tears. In the last strip, Calvin talks about the world being a big and wonderful place while Calvin and his "pet" tiger, Hobbes are getting ready to go sledding. They get on the sled, start down the hill, and as they are ready to disappear, Cavlin says to Hobbes. "Let's go exploring!" It was the most perfect way it could have ended. I was sad that it was over, but there were ten years worth of the strip that are easy to go back and read and fall in love with it all over again.
I find it sad that the printed pages of a newspapers are disappearing. Everything is available on the internet, but it has kind of killed some of the things that made the medium great. I miss getting the paper delivered and going to the comics and movie reviews. I think that we live in a day and age where the art of newspaper comic strips are pretty much extinct, and while some still survive online, I find it sad that the true art of the comic strip has been lost to the ages.
I also love Peanuts, The Far Side and Pickles. I actually have the complete Peanuts, The Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes "Complete Collection" Box Sets in hardback books, but I also own the digital versions to go back and read when I want to. I know it sounds silly to collect the expensive box sets, but I see it as a way to say Thank You to the artists and companies that produced the comic strips that I read for free every single day. It's also fun sharing Calvin and Hobbes strips with my son, Elliot, who is eleven years old, and it was a strip that my Grandma Coxey shared with me. That's actually how I discovered Calvin and Hobbes, was my grandma clipping out some of the strips and sharing them with me.
Calvin and Hobbes is about a six year old named Calvin, and his pet tiger, who is a stuffed animal, but who is actually alive to Calvin. The strip never really treats Hobbes like a stuffed animal 99% of the time, with exception of Calvin's parents throwing Hobbes into a washing machine, or Calvin's Classmates commenting, or beating up Calvin, that let you know that Hobbes is just a stuffed animal, but the rest of the time, Hobbes is alive and it's great.
Bill Watterson's imagination with the strip is incredible. Calvin's mindset is that he is the center of the universe, a lot like most six year old kids do. They wonder how the world works, and their brains try to make sense of it, but their imagination is what makes sense of what's actually happening. Hobbes, however, is the voice of reason, and he tends to be the other part of Calvin's mind that is starting to figure things out. Hobbes is the voice of reason while Calvin is pretty wild and adventurous, especially when he shouldn't be. It makes the strip so much fun to read.
The other part of the strip that's a riot is the way Calvin interacts with his parents. His parents are never named in the strip. Calvin wouldn't call his parents by their names, he's a little kid who knows them as Mom and Dad. Most of the time, Calvin is driving them a little crazy, but there are times when you see their kindness and even moments where Calvin cracks them up.
Calvin's imagination also lets the strip be something else almost entirely. For example, usually when Calvin is at school, in his imagination, he is Spaceman Spiff, a futuristic astronaut exploring the universe and it's many creatures, who usually take the form of his teacher and principal in the final frame of the strip. There's also things that are fun, like Calvin hating his mother's cooking, or Calvin's horrific snowmen scenes in the front yard. There are a lot of those snowmen, and they are fantastic.
One thing I think I have to mention was that Bill Watterson got his start making grocery store ads after he tried and didn't succeed as a political cartoonist. He was offered a nice lucrative job writing and drawing a comic strip for kids to sell toys, clothing and whatever else can be marketable towards kids, but Watterson turned it down. He wanted to be a cartoonist that loved his job, writing the strips he wanted to, and not for a company that was more focused on money more than the art, which is very rare in the world.
So, if Bill Watterson hated marketing and trying to push toys or tv shows and movies, why do we see Calvin peeing on a Ford logo on the back of immature truck drivers? They are all fake representations of the strip. The images are not of the property, and with the internet allowing you to basically create anything you want to, more fake Calvin and Hobbes products are out there and readily available, but I think that those products go completely against what the strip was, and shows that Bill Watterson was a genius.
Even though Calvin and Hobbes has been finished for a couple of decades, it still lets those who love the strip enjoy it still, since it is still selling hundreds of thousands of books that collect the whole strip, while also allowing younger generations to discover it, and so I'm sure Watterson isn't hurting for money, but the fact that the only merchandise sold are the books, it's amazing that the strip still remains one of the greatest of all time, and that they are just a relevant today, as well as loved today, and I think they always will be, and that's a lot better than other people trying to use the characters for movies or tv shows and other merchandise, besides the fake stuff.
It's easy to love something that isn't trying to advertise to you all of the time. I'm not saying that other properties are wrong for doing that stuff. I'm a film and media critic. I love movies and tv and other things, but for the strip, it makes it seem more pure and innocent, just like Calvin, and his tiger, are.
Well, that's about all I want to say, but you can't expect me to make a post like this without sharing some of my favorite strips from Calvin and Hobbes. I do not own them, and am only sharing them with you. I am not selling them. Sorry, I had to say that stuff incase someone tries to get me in trouble for sharing them, though I doubt anyone would want me to. I will also put a link to an Amazon page to shop for Calvin and Hobbes books. Here are the strips.....
You might need to click on the longer Sunday strip since it's a bigger strip. Here is the link for the books...
Calvin and Hobbes Amazon Book Link
Well, That's all I have for this post. It's weird, I usually write my posts late at night, but I came across my Calvin and Hobbes books, and I wanted to do a full post about it since I love them so much, and I still have a couple of hours until bedtime! I hope everyone of you out there is doing well. I hope you are being safe and praying for Ukraine. I will be back soon with another action packed post for you to read and hopefully like....Well, I can't promise you action packed, but it will probably be something I love, and can't wait to share with you all.
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