He’s real to Calvin, and that’s all that the strip, or I am concerned with.
I can’t understand how Bill Watterson hasn’t done anything else! How can such an incredible talent just stop creating?! I can understand him wanting to get out of the newspaper syndication thing, but he could go straight to books, develop a different character if he felt the Calvin thing is played out… I just don’t get it.
I LOVE his work.
Love!
Oh, and regarding Hobbes’ reality…
Someone (I think on this board) had a great comparison:
Hobbes :: Calvin as Tyler Durden :: [Ed Norton’s character (from Fight Club)].
(Which I guess would make Marla Singer :: Susie)
That link Fern Forest provided said that Watterson retired so he could address other challenges. That was in 1995. Has he met those challenges? What were they?
People keep telling me that I should read the whole thread before I get all posty. Experience had borne the advice out more than once, but I just don’t listen.
Watterson quit largely because he felt he wasn’t getting enough space or artistic freedom in his strip; he complained, loud and long, that newspapers weren’t blowing comic strip panels up big enough. It strikes be as being as very diva-esque complaint, but hey, it’s his strip and his life. He’s sort of a hermit.
As an aside, Calvin’s Dad looks exactly like Bill Watterson, except Watterson has a moustache.
Now y’all got me wondering what the strip is.
Fern, would you mind enlightening me?
Posted too early, didn’t see the link 'til now.
Evidently, Andy Kaufman had a thing for playing in the dryer when he was Calvin’s age and look how he turned out!
I miss Calvin and Hobbes dearly.
It’s like an old friend you never hear from anymore.
I like the one where they went on vacation and the 'rents wouldn’t let Calvin take Hobbes.
When they came back, the house had been burgled.
And Hobbes was missing.
And the Spaceman Spiff adventures!
And the psychotic snowmen!
(Okay, okay, they were all my favorites…)
I loved the tiny snowmen
And I liked the dad’s sense of humor.
“The sun is the size of a quarter. See?” holds up a quarter
“No, you were a blue light special at KMart. Way cheaper, and almost as good.”
Best.parent.line. EVER
I also am really shocked at the permanency of Watterson’s retirement. In an article at the link I gave he comes off as some one extremely fragile who was quite traumatized by the attention he got from the strip and now lives in hiding. It’s kinda sad.
The only thing I can think of that he’s done and made available since retirement is the intro to “Calvin & Hobbes Sunday Pages” where he says he paints and plays music. It does come off in an optimistic tone where he wonders why he quit something he was good at to pursue things he’s not good at and talks about how much he loves “Calvin & Hobbes.”
I bet he’s done many strips just for his own pleasure but he doesn’t share because he wants to slip into anonymity.
Wouldn’t it be funny if he’s been doing strips all this time under a different name? Of course, I’d like to think we’d have noticed his style… but who knows?
Like Sandy Koufax, like Jim Brown, Bill Watterson quit while he was at the top of his game.
Calvin and Hobbes was indeed the best comic strip ever.
Thanks so much!
I don’t remeber the Blue Light Special strip. Could someone indulge me with a linky-link or which book it’s in?
Oh, and Ivylass, I think Calvin just forgot Hobbes because he was piddling and wasting time, and nobody else was willing to go back after they’d been on the road for an hour or two.
I’ve always loved the one where Calvin’s copying off Susie’s test, and she keeps telling him wrong answers, telling him “The Louisiana Purchase” is a valid answer on a math test because it’s a trick question (or something similar). He thanks her, and she says, “Oh, you deserve it.”
Susie and Dad were my favorite characters in the strip, excepting the title characters, of course. Come to think of it, my dad always said Susie reminded him of me, so maybe I just appreciate a kindred spirit.
The K-Mart quote comes from page 113 of “Something Under the Bed is Drooling.”
November 28, 1985 was Thanksgiving, and I think I read somewhere that this was the year that all the comic strips were doing “attention to world hunger” strips. According to the archive at MyComicsPage.com, the regular Calvin and Hobbes for that day has Calvin refusing to eat his dinner, and then ordering a pizza when he is sent away from the table. Calvin opens with “This smells like bat barf,” which I suspect (pulling speculation directly out of my ass) prompted a request for an alternate from his editor. (C+H would be fewer than 2 weeks old at this point and Bill Watterson would have had none of the clout he would later enjoy.)
To see the regular strip, turn to page 10 of “Calvin and Hobbes” (the first book).
-Myron
PS: I thought I had read about the Thanksgiving connection on Martijn’s page. It’s at http://www.reemst.com/calvin_and_hobbes/?page=books