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Post by maddog1981 on Jun 1, 2014 11:37:53 GMT -5
I watched Dear Mr. Watterson on Netflix yesterday. If you haven't seen it, it's documentary about Calvin and Hobbes and the creator Bill Watterson. I thought the movie itself was pretty so-so but it left me with a burning desire to read the entirety of Calvin and Hobbes again.
Calvin and Hobbes are probably my favorite literary characters of all time. Reading a Calvin and Hobbes book is like revisiting childhood friends. Reading Calvin and Hobbes is what made me into a reader as a kid and it also led to me getting into comics when I was older. It had a huge impact on my life.
My plan is to break things down into quarters of each year. That will be about 12 weeks worth of comics and I think will make a nice block for posts. I plan to go over storylines and just highlight some of my personal favorite strips along the way.
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Post by maddog1981 on Jun 1, 2014 11:52:46 GMT -5
November/December 1985
Calvin and Hobbes debuted on November 18th, 1985. Calvin approaches his dad and says that he's off to catch a tiger. He baited the trap with tuna and the end of the first strip reveals that he caught his tiger. Watterson quickly gets to work establishing the dynamic between Calvin and Hobbes. We get introduced to the infamous bad tiger math in the first week, Calvin's disgust for most things served for dinner and the usual bedtime hijinks. The first Sunday strip has Calvin and Hobbes afraid of monsters under the bed which leads to his dad getting shot repeatedly with a dart gun. We get introduced to Calvin, his mom and dad, Hobbes, Miss Wormwood and Susie in these very early strips which makes up most of the cast.
Spaceman Spiff shows up in the second week and gets 2 Sunday strips in this time period. These are actually two of my favorite Spiff comics. One Calvin is fantasizing about crashing his spaceship when in reality he's just going down a slide and the other features him running into the teacher's lounge while escaping alien capture. What I love about Calvin's fantasies is how epic and verbose they are while everyone else is living your usual mundane existence around him. The contrast just makes it great.
One of my favorite strips from this time frame is one where Calvin is home sick and is watching a trashy soap opera. The people in the soap opera are plotting to murder their spouses. The woman's line is classic as she says "Murder?! You sick animal! I love it when you talk that way! Come here!" That had me howling when I read it last night. There's also one where Calvin sneaks out at 3 in the morning, calls his parents and asks if they know where he is. And the other really memorable one is Calvin asking how long it is till dinner because they are about to crash their sleigh and that's how long it will take her to miss them.
Overall, there's maybe 6 weeks of strips here and he's actually figuring things out at a pretty good pace. The problem with early Calvin and Hobbes is that it makes you want to read the later stuff when he was firing on all cylinders. But for the first 6 weeks of any comic strip this is still really top notch stuff.
I'll be back soon with January to March of 1986.
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shaxper
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Posts: 22,890
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Post by shaxper on Jun 1, 2014 11:57:15 GMT -5
Been reading Calvin and Hobbes from the beginning for the past five months. I just finished Revenge of the Babysat and got to a personal favorite watermark for me -- the first of those strips where Calvin and Susie play house and Waterson draws it like a soap opera strip.
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Post by maddog1981 on Jun 1, 2014 12:07:30 GMT -5
I totally forgot about when they played house. That really has a high point of the comic strip.
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Post by maddog1981 on Jun 1, 2014 20:17:33 GMT -5
January/February/March 1986
The longest running story in this time period is Calvin and Susie being sent to the principals office. Susie was passing notes and Calvin was being Calvin about it. They both freak out in the principals office and the principal decides that he hates his job. We also see a different side of the Calvin/Susie relationship as Valentine's Day rolls around. Calvin sends Susie a hate Valentine with dead flowers. Susie beats him up and they both leave happy as they realize the other likes them. There's also a Sunday strip around the same time where Calvin refers to their insult exchanges as flirting. I always found this aspect of their relationship to be really interesting but sadly it never gets explored much as the comic strip progressed through the years. Moe the bully is also introduced which completes the regular cast.
Some of my favorites during this time frame:
Calvin and Hobbes are playing pirates and Calvin declares their disgust for girls. Hobbes is perplexed by this and asks who they smooch.
There's a two parter where Calvin floods the house. In the first, Calvin calls his dad at work to tell him about the flood. In the second, Calvin says that his dad is struggling in the dad polls. Calvin's dad tells him that he didn't get desert because he flooded the house.
Calvin buys a heavy metal record. He throws the record away because he only bought it to bother his mom.
Calvin wakes his mom up in the middle of the night because he's thirsty and then gets upset when she brings him water.
I think the best strip from this time frame is a Sunday where the car breaks down. Antics follow.
Calvin's dad decides to give him an allowance. This doesn't go as planned as Calvin starts plotting how he's going to buy people off and how he's rich.
Calvin and Hobbes are playing on a tire swing and the big reveal is they stole a tire off of his dad's car.
This is very much a gag a day strip right now. Later down the road, a storyline can take months to complete and there doesn't need to always be a gag attached to a particular comic. Once March hits, you can really see Watterson start to get his footing with the characters. It's kind of amazing to see how quickly he's finding his voice with the characters.
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Post by maddog1981 on Jun 2, 2014 20:20:01 GMT -5
April/May/June 1986
We get the final addition to the cast with Rosalyn the babysitter. She's not an often used character. If I had to guess she maybe shows up once every couple of years. Around May you can really feel the strip starting to hit it's stride creatively. A dog steals Hobbes in a good week of comics and the Sundays are really great. There's still no really long storylines here. Hobbes getting stolen lasts a week and that's the longest he's stuck to a single idea so far.
I'm going to stick to my top 5 favorite strips from this time period:
Calvin and Hobbes are making faces at each other during a car trip and his dad yells at him.
Calvin wants to bring Hobbes to a restaurant and his dad says no because Hobbes will eat someone. This logic works perfectly on Calvin.
Calvin wakes his dad up for Father's dad and has some sarcastic works for him. This strip is absolutely one of the best ones that's appeared so far.
Calvin tells Hobbes about his Saturday morning routine and how it's kept him an only child thus far.
Calvin wants to smoke a cigarette and his mom lets him to teach him a lesson the hard way.
The sad thing is, there's probably 10-15 more strips that I would mention as being pretty funny from this time frame.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 2, 2014 20:51:41 GMT -5
I used to have a large Calvin and Hobbes book and a few smaller ones. I loved them. I'd like to get that complete set sooner or later.
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Post by maddog1981 on Jun 2, 2014 21:07:46 GMT -5
They have the Complete as a paperback now and for like $60 last I saw on Amazon.
Sent from my SM-T310 using Tapatalk
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Post by Action Ace on Jun 2, 2014 21:09:08 GMT -5
I store my Calvin & Hobbes hardcover set next to my Globe Illustrated Shakespeare volume.
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,890
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Post by shaxper on Jun 2, 2014 21:21:50 GMT -5
I store my Calvin & Hobbes hardcover set next to my Globe Illustrated Shakespeare volume. Comments like this are part of what I love so much about this community. Just sayin' |
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Post by DubipR on Jun 2, 2014 21:38:39 GMT -5
I store my Calvin & Hobbes hardcover set next to my Globe Illustrated Shakespeare volume. If I bought that set, I'd place it next to my Don Martin collection...two geniuses |
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Post by Pharozonk on Jun 2, 2014 22:10:12 GMT -5
I love this pic.  |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 3, 2014 14:01:09 GMT -5
Best comic strip ever. Best gift I ever got was the complete set.
If I am having a bad day I pull it out & read a few pages to make me laugh.
Pure genius. I love the snowmen that Calvin makes... |
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Post by maddog1981 on Jun 3, 2014 15:22:26 GMT -5
The Snow Goons book is the first one I ever bought and read.
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shaxper
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Posts: 22,890
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Post by shaxper on Jun 3, 2014 16:09:10 GMT -5
I love this pic. Wow. I'd never seen this before. |
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