Wow, I actually teared up a little
You are evile.
Huh, pretty lopsided result. Next time, give us 70 to 80 choices so we’ll be able to pick the proper nuance.
Does NOBODY else believe that Hobbes really comes to life when nobody’s around???
Tell me I’m not the only one!
Meh, after the inherent unbelievability to the same maudlin end of Puff, it’s a little hard to be taken in by that ploy again. I mean, it is actually appropriate in the case of Hobbes. But even if they’re all grown up, no man would ever forget a real live dragon. Not. a. one.
You are not, Sir.
Of Course Hobbes really come to life. He is clearly a Pooka and not a stuffed animal.
I have that shirt. I get the best reactions when I wear it. My favorite was at a comic book convention. A woman dressed as a zombie hooker told me my shirt was disgusting. And she clearly didn’t mean it in a good way.
Also, in the vein of the previously posted “final Calvin and Hobbes,” I give you the final episode of* Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends.*
I’ve never agreed with a “Zombie Hooker” before, but that is pretty disgusting.
Calvin is weird???
I haven’t gotten around to buying that one yet. However, I do have the one that shows a grinning Charlie Brown kicking Lucy’s bloody, severed head 
You’re looking for an in-story explanation, and there isn’t one. The explanation lies purely in the artistic reasoning you mention.
Maybe he has friends, but they are not portrayed? He is not shown going to the toilet either (possibly), but that doesn’t mean we should assume he doesn’t. If he really has no friends, I would assume that his parents had mentioned that at some point.
Interesting that to me, Bryan Ekers link is much worse than Runner Pats
I don’t want to turn this into a huge hijack, but speaking as someone who’s early life had some parallels with Calvin’s, and whose life has been comprehensively fucked up by ADHD going undiagnosed until adulthood, this strip is dangerously inaccurate.
Based on my own experiences at least, it really misrepresents the action of the drugs, or rather it doesn’t, but is missing the bit where Calvin finishes his homework 10 minutes later and spends the rest of the evening playing with Hobbes exactly like he would have done otherwise.
On the negative side, this does mean we miss out on the homework/time travel plot-line, on the positive side Calvin’s life is less likely to implode disastrously in high school.
I don’t even care about the “drugs” reference in the mock strip, and it could be removed without changing the point. Sooner or later, Calvin’s going to “grow up” and start concentrating on less-playful things, and then Hobbes will be just a stuffed animal (as, it is implied, he was all along), and Calvin might not even notice the transition.
I’m not sure that I’d agree with your implication that growing up necessarily involves becoming less “playful”, imaginative or creative, but whilst you are correct that Calvin will inevitably put Hobbes aside at some point, manufacturing tragedy or implying that this is unhealthy isn’t a great way to look at it.
I’ve just heard way to many people casually disparaging “the way we fill our children with drugs” without stopping to consider that maybe some of those kids actually have an opinion on the issue, and would rather be “deprived” of the constant frustration of being unable to pursue long term goals, or inability to relate to their peers.
Calvin Hobbes is a great comic strip and a IMHO a great work of art, but the only tragedy involved in it is likely to come if some parent sees the link you posted and decides not to talk to a doctor about their kids behaviour, and that is why I felt the need to risk derailing the thread.
Sorry, but I’m sure you can appreciate that this is something I can’t help but react strongly too.
I’m not implying it’s unhealthy in the least. It would extremely unhealthy if Calvin’s delusion persisted into his teen years. What I find sad about it has more to do with my enjoyment of the Calvin and Hobbes strip rather than some idealized view of childhood and how the storyline must ultimately end.
I feel much the same way when contemplating other fictional heroes. It’s nice to end a story with “and they lived happily ever after,” but I know that were these characters real, they’d gradually succumb to their own mortality, as we all do.
If a parent decides not to bother treating their kid’s ADHD because of a four panel comic found on the internet there’s really a lot more at issue than the ADHD.
The sad truth.
Pssssttt…post #7