I really do, I miss Calvin’s wit and imagination. I miss Hobbes’s level head and thoughtfulness. I miss the discussions they had. About everything. They seemed so innocent. Even on serious topics. I’m thinking of one where Calvin and Hobbes decide to play war. Calvin says that the just have to shoot eachother to win. They both hit eachother with their little toys guns. They stand silently for a moment. Hobbes looks up and says: " Kind of a stupid game isn’t it?"
It seemed so simple. But I slowly realized it was very profound. The way Calvin and Hobbes fit together was beautiful. They were the perfect friends. Hobbes balanced Calvins impulsiveness. Oh well, they’re legacy is over now.
Wearia
God, YES! 
I don’t think their legacy is over as long as there are people like you who keep it alive. O nthe one hand I too am sad that there are no new C&H strips coming out, but on the other hand, I am kinda glad that Watterson ended it when he did, because otherwise he might have ended up doing what Jim Davis has been doing with Garfield for the past 10 years, which is recycling the same 4 gags over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over.
I disagree, WSLer. Bill Watterson has a million times the creativity of Jim Davis. He could do Calvin and Hobbes for a full five thousand years and the strip on it’s 5,000th anniversery would be just as fresh as the very first one.
I also miss Calvin and Hobbes. Every few months I read all of the books in sequential order.
I don’t think so. watterson has said in the rare interviews that he does do, that one of the reasosn that he ended the strip was that he didn’t want to get burned out like he did once before and end up having to take a 9 month sabbatical, which led to complaints from supposed fans of the strip.
Another thing that weighed heavily on Watterson was the whole licensing thing. He was very much against licensing while his sydicate was very much in favor of it. If he had continued the strip, the conflict would have continued to grow which would have led to more sabbaticals and more pressure, the end result being that Watterson would just have gotten sick of doing the strip and would have quit it.
He was beginning to recycle gags. The one that stands out most prominently was Calvin hitting a baseball straight up and then catching it.
I think he went out when he should have, leaving us wanting more, not thinking “boy he should have quit years ago.” And personally I think the strip had lost some of its greatness. I can even pinpoint when. After the incident where he brings the snowman to life. Calvin was no longer a little kid but an adult in a kids body talking about things he shouldn’t know about. Which is kind of what Peanuts did too. Early Peanuts were real kids doing things and then eventually they became little adults.
It must be really hard to keep your character the same age and not have them grow any.
I miss 'em too, but if you don’t mind re-runs, here’s where you can go for a daily fix.
Watterson is my hero. He’s one of the few artists in the world who didn’t sell out when he got the chance. He could’ve gone the Jim Davis route and made himself a billionaire from all the product tie-ins – stuffed animals, T-shirts, coffee mugs, calendars, toys, cartoon shows – but he knew it would cheapen his art and turn his characters into corporate shills, so he fought the licensing every step of the way, despite the tremendous pressure the syndicate put on him to sell out.
Way to go, Watterson!
Osiris, while it may be true that he was beginning to recycle gags, the comic strip hardly began losing it’s greatness in the Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons, a storyline which I found both hilarious and strangely creepy. If anywhere, I’d say C&H began losing it’s spunk somewhere in the time period that Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat (~1994) covers. Even past that point, it was still funnier than anything else in the paper.
I’d like Calvin and Hobbes back, too.
I have a feeling that the reason Watterson ended up quitting is that he needed pressure to produce strips, but that the grueling demands of a daily performance were beyond his means or interest.
He once said that he felt constrained by the format of newspaper strips, but he didn’t suddenly produce anything different when he was able to do high quality color in books.
As for Garfield, well, that’s turned out by an assembly line. It has about as much personality as a compendium of Bob Hope or Jay Leno jokes.
Watterson, if you’re listening, I’d like you to take the yoke up again.
Oh I agree that was a great story line. But specifically I said just after that story arc which is near the end of the book. By “These Days are Just Packed” I begin to find it a little less fun to read.
I do find all of the long stories funny but it’s the smaller single story strips that I began to find preachy. With Watterson beginning to make adult oriented comments on the state of affairs with modern youth. Calvin complaining that school isn’t properly preparring him for the future. Calvin’s interest in ‘Chewing’ magazine. Calvin trying to get his mother buy him a “satanic worshiping, suicide advocating heavy metal album.” It might be funny, but it’s from a completely different point of view then from when he started.
Now Watterson’s apex I would place with “Revenge of the Baby-Sat.” The birth of G.R.O.S.S. and Calvin wrecking the car. The bug collection. That book is just brilliant. I’d rate the 10 books (10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 9 1/2, 9 1/2, 7.5, 7.5, 8) Those first 7 I have read them so much I just look at the first panel and don’t even have to read the strip cause I already know it by heart.
My absolute favorite strip is from the first book. Calvin puts a piece of bread in a toaster and pushes it down. In a few moments toast pops up. Hobbes picks up the toaster and squints inside and ask “Where does the bread go?” Cracks me up.
Disagree. Go grab a copy of The Essential Calvin and Hobbes, and read the short intro, “A Nauseous Nocturne”. He’s definitely going beyond the limits of the typical newspaper strip there, both in terms of art and storytelling.
rjung: don’t have it any more, but in light of your comment, I was looking over “Lazy Sunday Book” again. I wonder if you are referring to the elaborate watercolors, sometimes being a full page?
Yes, this is a step up in aesthetics from blotchy black-and-white printing on newsprint, but it doesn’t change the basic appeal of the strip, which is a kid and his tiger, talking about life.
If this new format was really so felicitous for him, overcoming the limits he felt in writing daily strips, then why didn’t he continue? Where’s the output?! I want output!
I miss em’ too. As far as the pinnacle…I couldn’t say. But today I still take comfort in going through the books. When I first start reading them I almost feel sick because I’m sad that Watterson didn’t continue…but then I realize that he’s “the man” and I would’ve rather had the strip end in glory than as some unfunny rehashed crap (aka. Garfield). It would be neat to see Watterson start up another strip, or do a “graphic novel” or something, even if not related to Calvin & Hobbes.
One thing about Watterson that bugs me:
In the introduction to The Essential Calvin and Hobbes he goes on about how he thinks the comic strip is one of the greatest forms of art ever invented by humankind, then he turns around and bitches about comic books being crap and beneath any serious notice.
Just a tad hypocritical, IMHO.
I too miss good ol’ C & H. It matters not to me that sometimes Calvin saw the world from a five-year-old’s point of view and sometimes from the “five-year-old in all of us” point of view. Hobbes was always a great counterpoint to Calvin’s runaway imagination. I especially like the Walter Mitty-ish episodes of Spaceman Spiff, Stupendous Man, and Captain Napalm.
My favorite strip is the one (an early one, I think) of where his mom hears loud pounding coming from the living room. She runs in and stops at the door and yells “Calvin, what are you DOING?!?!” Calvin looks up from the coffee table full of freshly pounded nails and innocently replies “Is this a trick question?” Although, I have to admit that my favorite single panel is one with no words depicting a naked Calvin standing in the toilet reaching up to hit the flush handle and a look of glee on his face. Talk about a picture worth a thousand words.
Oops, that’s six-year-old.
[quote} Posted by airdisc:
I disagree, WSLer. Bill Watterson has a million times the creativity of Jim Davis. He could do Calvin and Hobbes for a full five thousand years and the strip on it’s 5,000th anniversery would be just as fresh as the very first one.
quote]
Garfield when it first came out was extremely funny and relevent. The fact that Davis does the same jokes over and over makes it obvious that he needs to retire and he’s gone past his prime. My point is, in his time Davis was just as creative in his time but his strip has outlasted his creativity.
Watterson is extremely creative, but given time he too would likely run out of ideas and his comic would eventually turn south. As Garfield, Peanuts, even The Far Side (my nomination for best comic of all time. C&H a very close second) all did.
That said… I so miss Calvin and Hobbes. I only have a few of their books, but I love them dearly.
My friend and I once tried to make alien snow men, and dead snow men corpses. It’s not nearly as easy as Calvin made it look.
I wonder what Watterson’s doing nowadays.
I still think he should return to C&H strips–only moving the characters along in years. Calvin as the eccentric young adult he’s had time to grow into in the strip’s absence, Hobbes still present in some wacky manner. I’m pretty sure Watterson could pull off the fresh perspective.