I refuse to believe that G-d plays dice. 
Well it’s fiction of course, so interpretation is subjective. But if a six year old had an imaginary friend who consistently displayed far more intelligence and maturity than the kid had ever revealed -even once- I’d wonder what was up.
There was an old kids show made by the Lutheran church called Davey and Goliath: nobody other than Davey and the audience heard his dog Goliath talk. I suppose Goliath might be a product of Davey’s imagination - or rather his conscience - but I’d rather think of him as an anthropomorphic talking conscience disguised as a dog. More ambiguity in that case though, IMHO.
I didn’t read all of the answers because the answer is clear: Hobbes is real. At least to me and Calvin. YMMV.
Yep.
I want to see proof that Hobbes is smarter than Calvin. First off, Calvin is pretty dadblasted smart, commenting on things he shouldn’t know at his age. Secondly, I mostly remember Hobbes sounding smart but being hilariously wrong.
Big T, I seem to remember that too. Was he trolling? Memory is fuzzy, but I seem to remember him being honestly wrong, but often trying to cover it up. I think Calvin was definitely smarter.
Well, that’s kinda the point of the thread - the answer is NOT clear. By skipping everyone else’s answers you miss some interesting theory and observation. I still believe he is imaginary, but I appreciate the subtle ambiguity of the strip.
To me, the strip is about an incredibly bright kid with a big imagination. If others believe it is a strip about a kid with a Phouka, well it works that way, too.
It’s like, is Mr Ed a funny show about a smart aleky talking horse, or a depressing show about a guy with untreated schizophrenia? Does Jon know what Garfield is thinking, or is it all coincidence?
Mars is amaaaazing…
RE: The OP
It doesn’t matter. The cartoon is written from Calvin’s point of view, so real or not, Hobbes is real to him.
But does he play Calvinball?
She makes up the rules to everything as She goes along.
My original comment actually mentioned this. The problem with any evidence that Hobbes is “real” is that we see everything through Calvin’s eyes. Anything that could prove Hobbes is real could also be imaginary.
The sole exception is if Hobbes can actually be shown to be smarter than Calvin. That’s the only way we can tell if Hobbes has an existence outside of Calvin’s mind (which is what I assume “real” means in the context of this thread.) And even that’s based on the idea that Calvin doesn’t sometimes choose to believe against what he actually knows.
I’m actually leaning towards him not being real, because every work I can think of that has phoocas* explicitly states the folklore. And there is an assumption that a work is like reality except where explicitly contradicted. Thus, by leaving it up to the audience, Waterson inadvertently defaulted to Hobbes’s existence being purely in Calvin’s imagination.
The good-natured “debate” in this thread says a lot about the brilliance of Watterson’s strip.
Sez me.
Who ate the cookies? Not Susie, not Calvin. Is then, Susie Derkins bunny real?
Example, Hobbes on imaginary numbers.
Yes, but Calvin’s folks find him (tied up in the chair for example) after the fact. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy…
Hobbes said that Mr. Bun was comatose.
To tell the truth, my initial reading was that it was Calvin. The idea of it being Hobbes didn’t cross my mind until this thread. That third panel is ambiguous, both on where Calvin is standing and on whether Suzie handed Hobbes to him or if Calvin went and got him.
I assumed he went and got him, and then used the whole kissing thing as a distraction as he stole the cookies. I admit that’s more in character for Dennis the Menace than Calvin, though, so it’s a bit unsatisfying. But it does fit Hobbes’s character, and if Hobbes is completely imaginary, then that means his character is also a part of Calvin’s.
Plus, as I said, since we see the whole comic through Calvin’s eyes, it’s possible that Suzie’s line was also imaginary, what Calvin thinks would have happened if Hobbes were real. This might seem too complicated, but we have to realize the that author stated he made it ambiguous, and it wouldn’t be any ambiguity if there’s any actual proof one way or the other.
Of course, there’s always the option that he was not actually saying it was ambiguous–I don’t know the exact words he said. Perhaps he made Hobbes real but wanted people to have to find that out for themselves. All I can say to that theory is that it isn’t how I’ve seen that work in any other story with magical creatures.
Calvin sneakily scrambled the cookies into his pockets at some point during the interaction. I think that is the joke of the strip, that even though he appears nice to Susie for once (and is), he still took the cookies.
When no one’s around Calvin imagines Hobbes is a real tiger, but he’s actually Tyler Durden.