Was this a Calvin & Hobbes cartoon?

Cafe Society
1

I’m drawing some comics, and I have an opportunity to use a joke I’ve had in mind for a long time … but I have a sneaking suspicion that the gag may have already appeared in a Calvin & Hobbes strip:

Child bored during car trip. Staring out window, sees speed limit sign. Sees typical warning sign that says, “SPEED ENFORCED BY AIRCRAFT.” A sports car whizzes by, clearly over the speed limit … and an F-15 swoops out of the sky and blows it up with a heat-seeking missile.

Anyone recall this? (I don’t feel like paging through ten books of Calvin & Hobbes comics.)

2

Not quite the same. Calvin imagines a squadron of F-14s piloted by T.Rexs blowing up his school.

Hobbes was underwhelmed. :slight_smile:

3

That one is my favorite C&H of all time. The look on the T-Rex’s face in the cockpit was priceless.

Calvin: This is SO cool!
Hobbes: This is SO stupid.

4

No, you’re confusing two strips there.

In one, Calvin imagines T-rexes flying F-14s attacking other dinosaurs (tyrannadons?).

In the other, Calvin imagines him flying an F-14 and blasting his school to bits. Watterson got some complaints from parents about that one…

5

You’re right! Loved 'em both.

6

Ahh, yes. I forget the exact wording, but: The only thing more terrifying than a Tyrannosaurus Rex is . . . a Tyrannosaurus in an F-14!!!.

7

What are you drawing some comics for?

8

I love C&H and have read a lot of the collections, but I’m hardly an expert. For what it’s worth, I’m just about positive that I haven’t seen that joke used. It is a lot like the kind of stuff that would be in it. I think the idea is funny.

9

It is a very Calvin-type idea; I don’t think it would have been used by Watterson though. The focus of the humor is wrong. An F-14 blowing up the school would be a kid’s idea of cool. An F-14 blowing up speeders in traffic is a more adult-oriented fantasy (not in the X-rated sense of adult.) School is a cause of a kid’s frustration; traffic is a cause of an adult’s frustration. As I recall, Watterson was pretty consistent in his approach; Calvin might wax poetic at length about his observations of grownup issues, but his fantasy targets were always chosen from his own perspective.

10

Correction; Calvin was flying an F-15 during his attack on the school. (Oddly enough, it looked like he was attacking it with air to air missiles. :smack: )

Not to be confused with the one where he’s flying an F-4 Phantom, but discovers his plane is a shoddily constructed deathtrap—cut to him at a worktable, scowling at a model F-4 he’s (badly) assembled.

11

It wouldn’t have to be frustration, so much as a child-like view of how the world works.

12

I remember a sign from when I was a kid. It said “Speed Enforced by Radar”, and someone had spray-painted “O’Reilly” after it. I always thought that would make a good cartoon.

13

In addition to all the strips already mentioned, there’s also a chance that you could be thinking of a strip in which he sees a “maximum weight allowed on bridge” sign, and asks his dad how they come up with it.

14

Were you maybe thinking of This ?

15

Oh thanks for this! That’s getting printed out riiiight now.

16

Oh, and this is one of my favorite Calvin strips of all time.

17

There was also a strip (I think it was a Sunday) in which Calvin, bored on a long trip in the family car, asks if he can drive. He gets behind the wheel and goes so fast that the car starts flying. (It is a daydream, needless to say.)

But the gag you described never appeared in C&H. (I’ve read all the books at least a dozen times.)

18

A series of graphic novels for girls (3-5thish grades) due out in 2006. The gag in question might be used as a boredom fantasy (along with others) during a long car ride.