Christopher Caldwell memorialized one of our favorite comic strips in this recent
Wall Street Journal essay:
In 1985, American newspaper readers met an appalling little boy. He taunted his mother (“Prepare for annihilation, pitiful Earth female”), tormented a classmate by telling her he had brought a “thermos full of phlegm” for lunch and kept a sign on his bedroom door that read “Enter and die.” Millions fell in love with him.
Running in hundreds of papers for the following decade, Bill Watterson’s “Calvin and Hobbes” was not only the strangest American comic strip. It was also the funniest, the most touching and the most profound.
But in 1995, at the height of its popularity, Mr. Watterson, then in his mid-30s, retired. Barely a peep has been heard from him since, although a retrospective show that ran last year at Ohio State’s Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum drew crowds. The exhibition catalog, “Exploring Calvin and Hobbes,” is published this week. It deepens our sense of what Mr. Watterson accomplished—and the mystery of why he stopped.
At its simplest level, the strip is about the friendship between a bright 6-year-old misfit (Calvin) and his pet tiger (Hobbes). Its “trick” is that Hobbes is a lifeless stuffed animal when others are present and a rollicking, witty companion when they are not. So the story can be understood on many levels. It is about the richness of the imagination, the subversiveness of creativity and the irreconcilability of private yearnings and worldly reality. Where Calvin sees a leaf-monster trying to swallow him, Calvin’s father sees his troublemaker son scattering the leaf-piles he has spent all afternoon raking...
Rest of essay
There is a good documentary on Netflix about the comic strip and its creator. Search for
Dear Mr. Watterson, Searching for Calvin and Hobbes
12 comments:
Calvin and Hobbes represents so many things on so many levels: the wonder of fleeting childhood, unfailing friendship, and just funny on the surface! Spaceman Spiff Lives!
At least Calvin's had a steady job of peeing on things for the last two decades.
Calvin and Hobbes! The best!!!!
Watterson didn't allow Hobbes to be marketed. However, there is an "almost Hobbes" that can be found at target. Here is the picture (no, I don't know how to embed it here) http://dinosaurdracula.com/wp-content/uplhttp://dinosaurdracula.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/113.jpgoads/2013/04/113.jpg
and the link to the article.
http://dinosaurdracula.com/blog/calvin-and-hobbes-doll/
you can find it at Target for about $10.
This post has just brought the average IQ level here down a few points.
I was in college during Calvin and Hobbes' heyday and I loved the strip. I still enjoy reading through some collections on occasion. However, I think it has been elevated by overly nostalgic types to something far more than it was.
The "documentary" you mention is a perfect example. I watched it hoping to get some insight as to the making of and the inspiration for the strip. Instead I found a bunch of young adults fawning over a comic strip and how it "changed their lives". It was a parade of fanboys - that disturbingly obsessive product of the Internet era - speaking in their typical grandiose terms about the minutia of what was meant to be merely a pleasant diversion.
I see the same behavior with other childhood works. Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are" and anything by Dr. Seuss are also fatuously treated as landmarks of the modern literary canon by people who cannot separate nostalgic affection from profound insight and mistake children's stories infused with a bit of wry adult humor as works of (that incredibly overused word) genius.
I remember as a kid thinking that John Lennon was so intelligent and so deep rather than a pop musician in his thirties with a knack for penning catchy tunes and exploiting the mood of the times. I was jolted awake by a line in a magazine where a man was addressing Lennon's legacy. He said, "Lennon was a lightweight. If you want discussions on freedom, read John Locke." Bang.
I think there is a generation of stunted youth with indulgent parents that is fomenting this obsession with kiddie things, which is why we have 20 superhero movies each summer and 35-year-olds who regularly and enthusiastically go to conventions dressed up as space aliens. Perhaps they should but down their comic books for a second and read 1 Corinthians 13:11. Would that more people understood the profundity of that written work!
"Mr. Reed, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."
Are you seriously quoting scripture in a story about a comic strip? Calm it down. Perhaps you should put the book down and stop taking yourself so damn seriously all the time.
I agree with Kingfish on almost nothing, but I'll be damned if I'm going to write a thesis on why people place too much value in something as trivial as a comic strip. It's a comic strip. Jesus H. Christ.
Reed, you hit a nerve.
Who is 9:00 quoting?
IT's a "Billy Madison" quote if I remember correctly, and he's right.
Apparently people can't like things you don't like.
Here's another movie quote for ya, "Lighten up Francis!".
Another hallmark of the immaturity of the times is taking general commentary personally and attacking with rabid fervor the comment writer. I expected as much, especially in a forum where "Anonymous" is the preferred signature.
Did anyone bother to look up the scripture? I'm not proselytizing here. The admonition is quite relevant in a society that is placing more importance upon cartoons and fantasy and toy collecting than on hard work and virtue.
I never said one cannot like such things (thanks for putting words in my mouth, especially since I said I liked C&H), but I think it is folly to elevate "something as trivial as a comic strip" to the level of high art and/or philosophical truth. Unfortunately, such is the way of these times. For people that consider a television clown like Bill Nye to be a scientific expert or a comedian like Jon Stewart to be a political maven, it follows that a comic strip penned 25 years ago would be deemed a treatise on the human condition rather than an amusing diversion. We are seeing Theatre of the Absurd become manifest.
Sorry I'm not familiar enough with your quote to get the reference, but apparently you used an Adam Sandler comedy for your barb. The irony is palpable. (I did get the Stripes quote, though!) What's next? Gonna hit me with a few choice lines from Donnie Darko or a Batman movie?
("Why so serious?" coming in 3...2...)
Reed: Just credit the author when you quote someone. It's really simple. A first initial and last name will suffice.
Or do you really think people are so fascinated with your remarks that they will spend time Googling the content therein?
Post a Comment