My favorites were always Dad answering questions … questionably. One I still use today:
Oh, it’s tempting sometimes.
I try to give factual answers to everything my kid asks me, but I often don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, so it’s usually, “I think. I’ll have to look that up.” That there is Calvin’s Dad saving face.
Trying to answer questions for my daughter is what led me to the Straight Dope and then the SDMB.
One of the best ones involving Calvin’s dad was when he explained why old photographs were in black and white.
Probably one of my favorites of all time.
It actually makes me think Watterson might have been pretty good at writing over-the-top hard boiled detective fiction. Good enough to have have made a career of that too.
One of my favorites:
Calvin’s dad was probably just like Calvin when he was his age.
CALVIN’S MOM: Someday I hope you have a kid that puts you through what I’ve gone through.
CALVIN: Yeah, Grandma says that’s what she used to tell you.
The photos were in color, it was the world that was black and white.
Thanks. As Calvin said, “The world is a complicated place.”
And when it seems that way, I climb into a tree for a nap until dinner.
I pulled this on my 18 year old son a few months ago. The 18 year old who is currently studying to be an engineer.
He totally bought it.
While Calvin and Hobbes is certainly great, keep in mind that this board or Giraffe has a certain demographic. We’re mostly Americans, and we were mostly young when the strip was in its original run. A strip from another country, or from an earlier era, is going to be at a disadvantage in an environment like that.
Yes, I’ve heard great things about Pogo, but i have only read a few strips, long after its prime. I’m not a fair judge between Pogo and Calvin & Hobbs.
I was going to make a similar comment.
Both Pogo & Krazy Kat always felt both vapid and dated to me. They might have been just the thing to my parents, but as a kid/teen in the 60s & early 70s they were (in the vernacular of the day) lame; very lame.
I had little appreciation for either until I had acquired an academic knowledge of the art form as an adult. Pogo wasn’t written or drawn for me or my generation. Calvin & Hobbs was.
Yeah, I don’t see why the love for Pogo. Maybe it is the strip, or maybe it’s me.
But don’t you all be bad mouthing Peanuts! There’s room for more than one great comic strip.
In one guys opinion, these are the 30 best Valvim strips ever published.
https://www.cbr.com/greatest-calvin-and-hobbes-newspaper-strips/
Number 30
Number 1
I always liked the realistic touch of Calvin setting the table in the “life of virtue” comic - it’s one of those mundane, ubiquitous childhood chores that’s so rarely depicted in fiction.