The Artistry of Calvin & Hobbes
I stopped reading newspaper comics the last day they ran the final Calvin & Hobbes strip. Yes, I know one can find reruns everywhere, but since I own the hardback box set – all fifty pounds of it – every single episode – I can read them whenever the mood strikes.
No matter where MTM is in the house, when my Calvin & Hobbes laugh blows like a geyser, he knows exactly what I’m up to. Which episode are you reading? And is this the 3 millionth or the 4 millionth time? Please, at least STOP LAUGHING long enough to tell me.
The beauty of Bill Watterson‘s work, for me, was the dazzling use of color and the amount of drawing he devoted to a single episode of Spaceman Spiff. The gorgeous pictures tickled my eyes, but the stories captivated me. The sheer volume of words he created, so many of them situations where I found myself shrieking I remember when I did that!, made me worship him as a writer, too.
I found it preposterous that when he retired from comics he had to reinvent himself as a serious artist. He was already among the living artists I most revered. As belligerent as he has always been about licensing his work, I wonder whether he could break into newspapers today, whether his unwillingness to compromise his artistic vision would’ve robbed the world of one of the greatest comics strips of all time by a genius of an artist.
Do you have a favorite Calvin & Hobbes comic strip? Does some other comic make you shriek with laughter? Please share your selections today in a comment.
This post is the second installment in the series Eye of the Beholder, my wandering observations about works of art that speak to me. If this is your first visit to the series, please click here to catch up on the first post.
Trackbacks & Pingbacks
- The Raft of the Medusa « The Accidental Cootchie Mama
- The View Through a Tilted Arc « The Accidental Cootchie Mama
- Exhibitionism and a Dark Alley « The Accidental Cootchie Mama
- Come Away With Me « The Accidental Cootchie Mama
- Arrested by a Sargent « The Accidental Cootchie Mama
- Go Back to the Beginning « The Accidental Cootchie Mama
The comic that all young Brits remember ( baby boomer generation) is the “Beano”, the last issue of which is being published this week. There’s something wonderful about comic art and its use of dazzling colour. Comics are insanely popular in France. In the ancient city of Angouleme, the comic capital of France, some of the buildings have perfect comic strips, of French characters like Lucky Luke, painted on them from the roof to the pavement.
I would love to see Angouleme someday, and I would probably try to find all of those paintings.
Here’s a story on The Beano, for those readers in countries not familiar with it.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/9490131/Jessica-Ennis-to-appear-in-The-Beano-comic-as-Ennis-the-Menace.html
I’m not sure any comic strip made me shriek with laughter, but, I always looked forward to and appreciated Charles Schultz’s Peanuts cartoons and a soft spot for any and all Charlie Brown Christmas trees.
I’m a Peanuts fan, too, though the animations were what really caught my sense of humour…that teacher and her voice…
I was in “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” in high school, Penny. It was a tall order to bring those characters to life on stage. They are so iconic. I still tear up when I watch “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”
I was also in a production of “You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown” (playing Lucy – imagine why?!!). I also cry EVERY TIME I watch the Christmas special. When Linus says “That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown”, I just boo hoo. My favorite comic strips are Brevity (a one panel strip), Pearls Before Swine and Get Fuzzy. Like Lou, I get my comics from GoComics.com. You can go to their website and select the comics you wish to receive in your inbox daily. Every inbox needs a little levity.
I was Lucy, too!!! How cool is that?
I will have to look up some of these comic recs today. After today, a couple of laughs would be sweet.
I really can’t pick a favorite Calvin & Hobbes, they are all so good. I do enjoy the Spaceman Spiff episodes as they are just wild and so out there.
I still look forward to a daily does of Doonesbury as he pokes the political weasels. Also love a daily batch of Dilbert.
I can’t believe Doonesbury is still going. That thing has been around forever. I can’t even fathom the sort of stamina it must take to do that.
In reference to my comment from yesterday, YES! Sending a link of this to my mother as proof that maybe I am almost a little bit of an adult!
I’m a huge Tim Burton fan, too, enough to go see his big exhibit in New York several years ago. His drawings were just wicked good.
Peanut and the Dagwood and blonde comic strips were my favorites.
I can remember reading Blondie as a little girl. Like seven. I never understood it, but I read it every day.
My favorite comic strip is 9 Chickweed Lane by Brooke McEldowney. Doesn’t really make me laugh out loud but it is a feast for the eyes. I’m also very fond of In The Bleachers and Non Sequitur…oh, and let’s not forget Get Fuzzy. Ha, now that I think of it the only one I actually go and read every day is 9 Chickweed Lane but when I’m there I’ll peruse the other ones for a smile or two.
Haha! Here’s your 9 Chickweed Lane, Lori. Given my absence from the comics page, I hadn’t heard of it, and this one made me smile.
http://www.gocomics.com/9chickweedlane
You should go to either Go Comics or Yahoo Comics and check our 9 Chickweed Lane just for the Sunday edition, amazing drawing on Sundays.
Will do.
First, my daughter, son, husband, and I all love Calvin & Hobbes together. I love lots of comics, but it’s one of our favorites. MY favorite episode is the day he slipped an F bomb in there. It’s the one where Calvin has been playing with the fireplace tools and gotten soot everywhere. And Dad’s response is a picture of a nuclear bomb. And it’s so clearly the only word you would say in that situation. It’s beautiful.
The episodes where he tortured his father were always among my favorites. He would get so, so mad at Calvin, which was hilarious. Or, the ones where Calvin asked his father a question, and he gave him a preposterous answer. But the F bomb one was a classic for all time.
Cartoonists have long been caught in the land of in-between, Andra…look at Hogarth…to have captured the interest of several generations, though: as you say,that’s something else, worthy of a whole new genre of exhibitions. I’d be first in line to see them.
The Tim Burton one I referenced above was amazing. They did it in New York and LA, but I don’t know if they have plans to bring it your way. Here’s a page from the LACMA site. http://www.lacma.org/art/exhibition/tim-burton
Kate, I love Hogarth’s Times of Day (in the Streets of London Series) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/Fourtimes.jpg; and Marriage a la Mode! What pointed commentary those are. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_%C3%A0-la-mode_(Hogarth)
Wonderful! Another Hogarth fan! His pictures are sharp as a vagabond’s knife: yet they cut to the heart of things. Thanks for those two links, Cheryl, I haven’t looked at them in detail for a while.
I’ll peruse the comics, but Peanuts was always my favorite. My husband, however, has a lot of the Calvin and Hobbes collections books. I always know when he’s reading them in the bathroom because he’ll disappear for an hour to go to the bathroom, and I can hear him sitting in there, giggling.
I can see how that would cause one to spend lots of quality time in the facilities.
I was goofing off online this afternoon, killing the last 5 minutes or so of the day…and I found this.
http://www.geekfill.com/2011/11/14/26-years-later%E2%80%A6/
Thought you might like it.
AWESOME!!!
Hard to say which one is a fav. I like the one where Calvin pretends his face ” got stuck like that” after being warned that was what would happen if he made those faces anymore. And the transmorgrifier, and the one where his peas talk to him…so much fun.
Those are all fabulous ones, too.
I find it uproariously funny most of the time but Doonesbury is also the only strip that has ever made me cry… (see BD leg blown off – Davenport deaths etc.)
Any story with depth, and Doonesbury is one of those, ought to bring a tear now and then. That’s all part of life.
Gary Larson. There is, and has never been, any other comic equal to Farside.
The only comic I still read every day is Dilbert, but I would gladly give up Dilbert forever for a new supply of Farside comics.
Do you still get the Farside calendars? Do they make those anymore?
Sadly, no. I kept buying the calendars until they stopped making them even though I’d seen them all before. They still sell the complete collection in book form, and there are a couple of animated short films still available online.
I wish I”d bought a few of my favorites on coffee mugs while they were still making them.
I have a bootleg Hobbes t-shirt that I got, like, 20 years ago. It is stained and full of holes, and I still wear it. Maybe they have mugs on eBay?? http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=far+side+mug
Tales From The Far Side I and II is available on DVD here http://tinyurl.com/6nck4x
For some strange reason I’ve never purchased a copy for myself. I’ve actually never even seen TFTFS II. Shameful for a Larson fan, I know.
I’m not sure if I have a favorite… they just all made me laugh.The perfectly balanced insight and innocence was always a delight.
A vivid imagination like that was crack cocaine for me. I was riveted by the ideas Watterson could produce.
Reading thru the comments, I thought for sure that everyone was overlooking my absolute, all time, bar none favorite; then I got to Bill’s comment . . . Without a doubt, Gary Larson has no equal in the world of cartoonists, as far as I am concerned. I was heartbroken when he discontinued Far Side. I was all set to share a favorite cartoon or two, but I read his Note (http://www.creators.com/a-note-from-gary-larson.html) first and have reconsidered. What he wrote here makes absolute sense to me, and might in the future give me pause about sharing the “children” of others whose work I admire. Suffice it to say I have laughed at so many of his cartoons; laughed until tears ran, until my sides ached, until I felt I could surely laugh no more, then did anyway!
That said, I am also a fan of Pearls Before Swine (Stephen Pastis) and The Argyle Sweater (Scott Hilburn). I printed, enlarged and framed this: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.3234424143113.2126649.1341961177&type=1 It hangs in my bathroom.
Link also not working on the picture. I don’t know why, but will happily blame Facebook.
I’m sure it is funny if it hangs in your bathroom.
With the proliferation of the internet, it is hard to imagine that anything on earth won’t find its way there and that at some point all of us trying-to-be-artists won’t be starving again, simply because people will not pay for things when they can get them for free. I struggle with that every single day here, because I give my art away post by post, bit by bit. I try to save the better things for my novels. I can’t show up here every day and write something out of the park, but I do step up to the plate and try.
Most days it’s “out of the park” for me, but I do admit to a certain amount of bias.
Sadly, although FB (to say nothing of my recalcitrant computer as a whole) has been giving me LOTS of grief lately, this boo boo was mine and not theirs. I needed to adjust the privacy settings; this particular album is where I’ve put a few photos that I didn’t quite deem necessary to share with everyone. The link will take you to the entire album, I think, but it will be easy to find the last two entries I made–yesterday’s comment and today’s–, as well as the revered Mustang I wrote about in MTM’s post awhile back. Stay dry!
I’ll go over there and poke around, Karen. It’s a lake in my parking lot right now, and Michael can’t get out of his office.
Calving and Hobbes is my bible.
It’s a good bible. Lots of lessons for living in there.
I was feeling down this week, and inspired by your post I brought out a good old Calvin & Hobbes anthology.
That was such a great strip. I haven’t seen it in too long to have a favorite specific strip, but I so miss it.
The books are dandy for a quick fix.
How fun to learn of your love of Calvin & Hobbes. I must admit only a passing knowledge of the strip, but now I’m really curious. My comic strip interests have never been to strong, and I don’t know why. Just never got into the habit of checking, I think. But I love The Far Side and Doonesbury. I felt about the Far Side like you did when Calvin & Hobbes was reitred. I wanted to buy the whole collection, but nearly choked at the price. It’s been a few years so perhaps I might see if it is a bit more affordable. What a nice way to start my day today, Andra!
Bill Smithem above has provided some Farside links, Debra, in case you’re interested in point-and-click wish fulfillment.
Not that I don’t like Calvin & Hobbes. The only books relating to comic strips in my library are Far Side, Calvin & Hobbes and Dilbert.
I loved Far Side because of the word play and wit. Calvin and Hobbes was awesome as well. My kids all had the C & H books and read them over and over. Our youngest was Calvin for one of his first Halloweens.
Oh, I wish I could convince a kid to be Calvin for Halloween. That would be SO AWESOME.
Everything I needed to learn about life, I learned from Calvin and Hobbes.
The most important lesson I learned is that if you are not happy, you simply have to lower your expectations. I think it was a scene where Calvin was depressed because he got a low grade on his test. He lowered his expectations, and he was happy again.
J.D., it is a brilliant set of life lessons, and a study of people in general. The lowered expectations set was great.
I like Calvin and Hobbes, especially the ones where he makes the snowmen into tortured souls in the front yard. But, Bloom County has always been my favorite comic. Opus and Bill the Cat just are too cool. http://news.yahoo.com/comics/bloom-county-slideshow/
The snow goons are a riot. I love the beheaded ones.
I am learning so many new comics today. I saw this one years ago. Thanks for sharing it.
And just for you, I updated my Facebook profile pic.
I saw that last night. It gave me a big laugh right before I went to sleep.
he comics always got so much across with so little detail, exactly enough
It really is a tough form of writing. Economy of words and still getting points across…..that’s hard.
I too loved Calvin and Hobbes. Like MC above me… Bloom County was one of my favorites too. But the one I loved the most… well you are too young to have read it in the daily newspaper… Dick Tracy. Oh, and Pogo and Li’l Abner too.
I remember Dick Tracy. His face was always so pointy or something. The lines were sharp.
Yes, my favorite is: the one where Calvin says, “They say the world is a stage”; and Calvin continues, “But obviously the play is unrehearsed and everybody is ad-billing his lines.” To which Hobbes quips, “Maybe that’s why it’s hard to tell if we’re in a tragedy or a farce.” And Calvin observes, “We need more special effects and dance numbers.” Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about!
Well, obviously I can’t type, that’s adlibbing!
I thought a dose of Calvin and Hobbes would cheer me up. It didn’t today, but it usually works a wonder.
My faves: His anti-social snowmen . . . and the strips where Calvin wants Hobbes to plead his case with Santa Claus. Hobbes, of course, wants him to plead not guilty by reason of insanity.
Oh, I forgot about the Santa Claus ones, Nancy. Those are a real delight. Because I used to be such a nut about Christmas as a kid, I saw myself in many of those strips.
I hope many laughs are just around the next corner, and the corner is coming up.
From one of The Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cats, to another!!!
I’ve loved Calvin & Hobbs since my teens!
Me too, Stephen. I have always been quite fanatical about it. Glad to meet you.
Calvin and Hobbes is my favourite. I have the Complete C&H too, along with the Complete Far Side, Dilbert 2.0 and User Friendly.
My favourite C&H strips are the ones where they’re talking deep thoughts while careening down a hill in the wagon. The snowmen ones are great too. I still read C&H daily online, and pull out the books now and then to binge.
And, of course, you’re ‘imabug’ for a reason.