My Life in Books: Bill Watterson
If Charles Schulz was my the first comic love of my childhood, Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes was the greatest. Schulz and Peanuts were already old and past their creative peak when I was born, where as Calvin & Hobbes ran from when I was in second grade to when I was a senior in high school. If there's any pop culture from my childhood that's well and truly "mine," it's Calvin & Hobbes.
Can we talk about the obvious? My parents were totally Calvin's parents. This is especially true of my father. He may not have been a patent attorney, but many of Calvin's dad's little quirks could have been lifted directly from my father (cycling, canoe camping) or were mild twists of his actual behavior (his sense of humor, in particular). I don't think I've ever read a Calvin and Hobbes collection and not thought "yeah, Dad would totally do that" at least once. Mom was a little less obviously Calvin's mom, but the dry sense of humor was definitely her.
Interestingly, while I though my parents were Calvin's parents, I don't recall ever thinking of myself as Calvin. I had the Spaceman Spiff style imagination, but I never had a Hobbes during the years the comic ran. I was happy to be alone with a book instead of an imaginary friend, and perhaps because of that never put myself directly into Calvin's shoes. I also am pretty sure I never misbehaved that consistently badly. Nor was there a Susie Derkins next store to my house or on my street, unless you counted my sister, which obviously isn't the same thing at all.
I have books containing every Calvin & Hobbes strip ever released, most of which were gifts throughout my childhood. I also clipped the final strip from the Grand Forks Herald back on December 31, 1995 and have it saved inside one of the books. It was the end of an era. When I went to college the next year, the internet appeared and started to destroy daily newspapers. The real comic action was moving to the internet, and I followed it.
Today I don't even get a newspaper, which is something I couldn't have imagined as a kid but with box scores and everything else on the internet, it's never made sense. On the rare times when I read a physical newspaper (usually at my parents), the comics are mostly the same comics that filled the pages when I was a kid, and if those strips ever had a golden era it usually predated my being born. Although we couldn't have known it at the time, Calvin & Hobbes ended up being the last great syndicated comic strip. Calvin & Hobbes had a lot of subtle lessons embedded in it, but Watterson's final lesson was that you should leave them wanting more. By ending Calvin & Hobbes when it was still the very best comic strip in action, we didn't have to live through 20 years of diminishing quality, let alone second and third generation authors turning once fresh jokes into tired cliches.
This lesson was also a gift. Because Watterson ended the strip at what seemed like a premature moment, there never came a day when I said "oh yeah, Calvin & Hobbes is still running? I used to read that." Perhaps alone of my childhood pop culture favorites, Calvin & Hobbes is unsullied. There has been no questionable reboot, no terrible prequels, no horrible revelations about Watterson himself or any of the characters. There's just perfect memories of a boy and his tiger, out there exploring somewhere. Thanks, Bill.
Can we talk about the obvious? My parents were totally Calvin's parents. This is especially true of my father. He may not have been a patent attorney, but many of Calvin's dad's little quirks could have been lifted directly from my father (cycling, canoe camping) or were mild twists of his actual behavior (his sense of humor, in particular). I don't think I've ever read a Calvin and Hobbes collection and not thought "yeah, Dad would totally do that" at least once. Mom was a little less obviously Calvin's mom, but the dry sense of humor was definitely her.
Interestingly, while I though my parents were Calvin's parents, I don't recall ever thinking of myself as Calvin. I had the Spaceman Spiff style imagination, but I never had a Hobbes during the years the comic ran. I was happy to be alone with a book instead of an imaginary friend, and perhaps because of that never put myself directly into Calvin's shoes. I also am pretty sure I never misbehaved that consistently badly. Nor was there a Susie Derkins next store to my house or on my street, unless you counted my sister, which obviously isn't the same thing at all.
I have books containing every Calvin & Hobbes strip ever released, most of which were gifts throughout my childhood. I also clipped the final strip from the Grand Forks Herald back on December 31, 1995 and have it saved inside one of the books. It was the end of an era. When I went to college the next year, the internet appeared and started to destroy daily newspapers. The real comic action was moving to the internet, and I followed it.
Today I don't even get a newspaper, which is something I couldn't have imagined as a kid but with box scores and everything else on the internet, it's never made sense. On the rare times when I read a physical newspaper (usually at my parents), the comics are mostly the same comics that filled the pages when I was a kid, and if those strips ever had a golden era it usually predated my being born. Although we couldn't have known it at the time, Calvin & Hobbes ended up being the last great syndicated comic strip. Calvin & Hobbes had a lot of subtle lessons embedded in it, but Watterson's final lesson was that you should leave them wanting more. By ending Calvin & Hobbes when it was still the very best comic strip in action, we didn't have to live through 20 years of diminishing quality, let alone second and third generation authors turning once fresh jokes into tired cliches.
This lesson was also a gift. Because Watterson ended the strip at what seemed like a premature moment, there never came a day when I said "oh yeah, Calvin & Hobbes is still running? I used to read that." Perhaps alone of my childhood pop culture favorites, Calvin & Hobbes is unsullied. There has been no questionable reboot, no terrible prequels, no horrible revelations about Watterson himself or any of the characters. There's just perfect memories of a boy and his tiger, out there exploring somewhere. Thanks, Bill.