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Calvin and Hobbes

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   CAPTION: Calvin and Hobbes

   Calvin and Hobbes took many wagon rides
   over the years—this one showed up on the cover
   of the first collection of comic strips.

   Creator(s)   Bill Watterson
   Status       Ended
   Syndicate(s) Universal Press Syndicate
   Genre(s)     Humor
   First strip  November 18, 1985
   Last strip   December 31, 1995
   Website      Calvin and Hobbes at GoComics

   This is a spoken article. Click here to listen.

   Calvin and Hobbes was a daily comic strip written and illustrated by
   Bill Watterson, following the humorous antics of Calvin, an imaginative
   six-year old boy and Hobbes, his energetic and sardonic—albeit
   stuffed—tiger. The strip was syndicated from November 18, 1985 to
   December 31, 1995. At its height, Calvin and Hobbes was carried by over
   2,400 newspapers worldwide. To date, more than 30 million copies of the
   18 Calvin and Hobbes books have been printed, and popular culture is
   still replete with references to the strip.

   The strip is vaguely set in the contemporary Midwestern United States,
   on the outskirts of suburbia, a location probably inspired by
   Watterson's home town of Chagrin Falls, Ohio. Calvin and Hobbes appear
   in most of the strips, though several focused instead upon Calvin's
   family. The broad themes of the strip deal with Calvin's flights of
   fantasy, his friendship with Hobbes, his misadventures, his views on a
   diverse range of political and cultural issues and his relationships
   and interactions with his parents, classmates, educators, and other
   members of society. A number of cartoons feature Calvin announcing the
   results of "polls of household six-year-olds" to his father, treating
   his father's position as though it were an elected political office.

   The dual nature of Hobbes is also a recurring motif. Calvin sees Hobbes
   as alive, while other characters see him as a stuffed animal, a point
   discussed more fully in Hobbes' main article. Unlike political strips
   such as Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury, the series does not mention
   specific political figures, but does examine broad issues like
   environmentalism and the flaws of opinion polls.

   Because of Watterson's strong anti- merchandizing sentiments and his
   reluctance to return to the spotlight, almost no legitimate Calvin and
   Hobbes licensed merchandise exists outside of the book collections.
   Some officially approved items were created for marketing purposes and
   are now sought by collectors. Two notable exceptions to the licensing
   embargo were the publication of two 16-month wall calendars and the
   textbook Teaching with Calvin and Hobbes. However, the strip's immense
   popularity has led to the appearance of various " bootleg" items,
   including T-shirts, keychains, bumper stickers, and window decals,
   often including obscene language or references wholly uncharacteristic
   of the whimsical spirit of Watterson's work.

History

   Calvin and Hobbes was first conceived when Watterson, having worked in
   an advertising job he detested, began devoting his spare time to
   cartooning, his true love. He explored various strip ideas but all were
   rejected by the syndicates to which he sent them. However, he did
   receive a positive response on one strip, which featured a side
   character (the main character's little brother) who had a stuffed
   tiger. Told that these characters were the strongest, Watterson began a
   new strip centered on them. The syndicate ( United Features Syndicate)
   which gave him this advice rejected the new strip, and Watterson
   endured a few more rejections before Universal Press Syndicate decided
   to take it.

   The first strip was published on November 18, 1985 and the series
   quickly became a hit. Within a year of syndication, the strip was
   published in roughly 250 newspapers. By April 1, 1987, only sixteen
   months after the strip began, Watterson and his work were featured in
   an article by the Los Angeles Times, one of America's major newspapers.
   Calvin and Hobbes twice earned Watterson the Reuben Award from the
   National Cartoonists Society, in the Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year
   category, first in 1986 and again in 1988. (He was nominated again in
   1992.) Also, the Society awarded him the Humor Comic Strip Award for
   1988.

   Before long, the strip was in wide circulation outside the United
   States; for more information on publication in various countries and
   languages, see Calvin and Hobbes in translation.

   Watterson took two extended breaks from writing new strips — from May
   1991 to February 1992, and from April through December of 1994.

   In 1995, Watterson sent a letter via his syndicate to all editors whose
   newspapers carried his strip. It contained the following:


   Calvin and Hobbes

    I will be stopping Calvin and Hobbes at the end of the year. This was
     not a recent or an easy decision, and I leave with some sadness. My
    interests have shifted however, and I believe I've done what I can do
   within the constraints of daily deadlines and small panels. I am eager
    to work at a more thoughtful pace, with fewer artistic compromises. I
      have not yet decided on future projects, but my relationship with
                  Universal Press Syndicate will continue.

   That so many newspapers would carry Calvin and Hobbes is an honour I'll
       long be proud of, and I've greatly appreciated your support and
    indulgence over the last decade. Drawing this comic strip has been a
         privilege and a pleasure, and I thank you for giving me the
                                opportunity.


   Calvin and Hobbes

   The 3,160th and final strip ran on Sunday, December 31, 1995. It
   depicted Calvin and Hobbes outside in freshly-fallen snow, reveling in
   the wonder and excitement of the winter scene. "It's a magical world,
   Hobbes ol' buddy!" The last panel shows Calvin and Hobbes zooming off
   on their sled as Calvin exclaims: "Let's go exploring!"

Syndication and Watterson's artistic standards

   From the outset, Watterson found himself at odds with the syndicate,
   which urged him to begin merchandising the characters and touring the
   country to promote the first collections of comic strips; Watterson
   refused. To him, the integrity of the strip and its artist would be
   undermined by commercialization, which he saw as a major negative
   influence in the world of cartoon art.

   Watterson also grew increasingly frustrated by the gradual shrinking of
   available space for comics in the newspapers. He lamented that without
   space for anything more than simple dialogue or spare artwork, comics
   as an art form were becoming dilute, bland, and unoriginal. Watterson
   strove for a full-page version of his strip (as opposed to the few
   cells allocated for most strips). He longed for the artistic freedom
   allotted to classic strips such as Little Nemo and Krazy Kat, and he
   gave a sample of what could be accomplished with such liberty in the
   opening pages of the Sunday strip compilation, The Calvin and Hobbes
   Lazy Sunday Book.

   During Watterson's first sabbatical from the strip, Universal Press
   Syndicate continued to charge newspapers full price to re-run old
   Calvin and Hobbes strips. Few editors approved of the move, but the
   strip was so popular that they had little choice but to continue to run
   it for fear that competing newspapers might pick it up and draw its
   fans away. Then, upon Watterson's return, Universal Press announced
   that Watterson had decided to sell his Sunday strip as an unbreakable
   half of a newspaper or tabloid page. Many editors and even a few
   cartoonists, such as Bil Keane ( The Family Circus), criticized him for
   what they perceived as arrogance and an unwillingness to abide by the
   normal practices of the cartoon business—a charge that Watterson
   ignored. Watterson had negotiated the deal to allow himself more
   creative freedom in the Sunday comics. Prior to the switch, he had to
   have a certain number of panels with little freedom as to layout (due
   to the fact that in different newspapers the strip would appear at a
   different width); afterwards, he was free to go with whatever graphic
   layout he wanted, however unorthodox. His frustration with the standard
   space division requirements is evident in strips before the change; for
   example, a 1988 Sunday strip published before the deal is one large
   panel, but with all the action and dialogue in the bottom part of the
   panel so editors could crop the top part if they wanted to fit the
   strip into a smaller space. Watterson's explanation for the switch:


   Calvin and Hobbes

     I took a sabbatical after resolving a long and emotionally draining
   fight to prevent Calvin and Hobbes from being merchandised. Looking for
     a way to rekindle my enthusiasm for the duration of a new contract
     term, I proposed a redesigned Sunday format that would permit more
   panel flexibility. To my surprise and delight, Universal responded with
    an offer to market the strip as an unbreakable half page (more space
   than I'd dared to ask for), despite the expected resistance of editors.

    To this day, my syndicate assures me that some editors liked the new
    format, appreciated the difference, and were happy to run the larger
    strip, but I think it's fair to say that this was not the most common
        reaction. The syndicate had warned me to prepare for numerous
    cancellations of the Sunday feature, but after a few weeks of dealing
   with howling, purple-faced editors, the syndicate suggested that papers
    could reduce the strip to the size tabloid newspapers used for their
  smaller sheets of paper. … I focused on the bright side: I had complete
        freedom of design and there were virtually no cancellations.

       For all the yelling and screaming by outraged editors, I remain
   convinced that the larger Sunday strip gave newspapers a better product
    and made the comics section more fun for readers. Comics are a visual
     medium. A strip with a lot of drawing can be exciting and add some
   variety. Proud as I am that I was able to draw a larger strip, I don't
   expect to see it happen again any time soon. In the newspaper business,
     space is money, and I suspect most editors would still say that the
     difference is not worth the cost. Sadly, the situation is a vicious
     circle: because there's no room for better artwork, the comics are
    simply drawn; because they're simply drawn, why should they have more
                                    room?


   Calvin and Hobbes

   Despite the change, Calvin and Hobbes remained extremely popular and
   thus Watterson was able to expand his style and technique for the more
   spacious Sunday strips without losing carriers.

   Since ending the strip, Watterson has kept aloof from the public eye
   and has given no indication of resuming the strip, creating new works
   based on the characters, or embarking on other projects. He refuses to
   sign autographs or license his characters, staying true to his stated
   principles. In previous years, he was known to sneak autographed copies
   of his books onto the shelves of a family-owned bookstore near his home
   in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. However, after discovering that some people
   were selling the autographed books on eBay for high prices, he ended
   this practice as well.

Merchandising

   Bill Watterson is notable for his insistence that cartoon strips should
   stand on their own as an art form, and he has resisted the use of
   Calvin and Hobbes in merchandizing of any sort. This insistence stuck
   despite the fact that it could have generated millions of dollars per
   year in additional personal income. Watterson explains in a 2005 press
   release:


   Calvin and Hobbes

   Actually, I wasn't against all merchandising when I started the strip,
      but each product I considered seemed to violate the spirit of the
   strip, contradict its message, and take me away from the work I loved.
    If my syndicate had let it go at that, the decision would have taken
                        maybe 30 seconds of my life.


   Calvin and Hobbes

   Watterson did ponder animating Calvin and Hobbes, and has expressed
   admiration for the art form. In a 1989 interview in The Comics Journal,
   Watterson states:


   Calvin and Hobbes

    If you look at the old cartoons by Tex Avery and Chuck Jones, you'll
      see that there are a lot of things single drawings just can't do.
     Animators can get away with incredible distortion and exaggeration
      [...] because the animator can control the length of time you see
    something. The bizarre exaggeration barely has time to register, and
     the viewer doesn’t ponder the incredible license he's witnessed.

   In a comic strip, you just show the highlights of action — you can't
    show the buildup and release... or at least not without slowing down
       the pace of everything to the point where it's like looking at
    individual frames of a movie, in which case you've probably lost the
    effect you were trying to achieve. In a comic strip, you can suggest
    motion and time, but it's very crude compared to what an animator can
                  do. I have a real awe for good animation.


   Calvin and Hobbes

   After this he was asked if it was "a little scary to think of hearing
   Calvin's voice." He responded that it was "very scary," and although he
   loved the visual possibilities animation had, the thought of casting
   voice actors to play his characters was something he felt uncomfortable
   doing. Plus, he wasn't sure he wanted to work with an animation team,
   as he'd done all previous work by himself. Ultimately, Calvin and
   Hobbes was never made into an animated series.

   Except for the books, two 16-month calendars (1988–1989 and 1989–1990),
   and Teaching with Calvin and Hobbes, virtually all Calvin and Hobbes
   merchandise, including T-shirts as well as the ubiquitous stickers for
   automobile rear windows which depict Calvin urinating on a company's or
   sports team's name or logo, is unauthorized. After threat of a lawsuit
   alleging infringement of copyright and trademark, some of the sticker
   makers replaced Calvin with a different boy, while other makers ignored
   the issue. Watterson wryly commented "I clearly miscalculated how
   popular it would be to show Calvin urinating on a Ford logo." Some
   legitimate special items were produced, such as promotional packages to
   sell the strip to newspapers, but these were never sold outright.

Style and influences

   Calvin and Hobbes strips are characterized by sparse but careful
   craftsmanship, intelligent humor, poignant observations, witty social
   and political commentary, and well-developed characters that are full
   of personality. Precedents to Calvin's fantasy world can be found in
   Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts, Percy Crosby's Skippy, Berkeley Breathed's
   Bloom County, and George Herriman's Krazy Kat, while Watterson's use of
   comics as sociopolitical commentary reaches back to Walt Kelly's Pogo.
   Schulz and Kelly in particular influenced Watterson's outlook on comics
   during his formative years.

   Notable elements of Watterson's artistic style are his characters'
   diverse and often exaggerated expressions (particularly those of
   Calvin), elaborate and bizarre backgrounds for Calvin's flights of
   imagination, well-captured kinetics, and frequent visual jokes and
   metaphors. In the later years of the strip, with more space available
   for his use, Watterson experimented more freely with different panel
   layouts, stories without dialogue, and greater use of whitespace. He
   also made a point of not showing certain things explicitly: the "Noodle
   Incident" and the children's book Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie
   were left to the reader's imagination, where Watterson was sure they
   would be “more outrageous” than he could portray.

   Watterson's technique started with minimal pencil sketches (though the
   larger Sunday strips often required more elaborate work); he then would
   use a small sable brush and India ink to complete most of the remaining
   drawing. He was careful in his use of colour, often spending a great
   deal of time in choosing the right colors to employ for the weekly
   Sunday strip.

Art and academia

   Watterson has used the strip to criticize the artistic world,
   principally through Calvin's unconventional creations of snowmen. When
   Miss Wormwood complains that he is wasting class time drawing
   incomprehensible things (a Stegosaurus in a rocket ship, in fact),
   Calvin proclaims himself "on the cutting edge of the avant-garde". He
   begins exploring the medium of snow when a warm day melts his snowman.
   His next sculpture "speaks to the horror of our own mortality, inviting
   the viewer to contemplate the evanescence of life", much in the vein of
   Ecclesiastes. Over the years, Calvin's creative instincts diversify
   into sidewalk drawings ("suburban postmodernism").

   Watterson also directed criticism toward the academic world. Calvin
   writes a " revisionist autobiography", giving himself a flame thrower.
   In another strip, he carefully crafts an " artist's statement", knowing
   that such essays convey more messages than artworks themselves ever do
   (“You misspelled Weltanschauung,” Hobbes blandly notes). He indulges in
   what Watterson calls “ pop psychobabble” to justify his destructive
   rampages and shift blame to his parents, citing "toxic codependency."
   Once, he pens a book report entitled, "The Dynamics of Interbeing and
   Monological Imperatives in Dick and Jane: A Study in Psychic
   Transrelational Gender Modes." Displaying his creation to Hobbes, he
   remarks, " Academia, here I come!" Watterson explains that he adapted
   this jargon (and similar examples from several other strips) from an
   actual book of art criticism.

   Overall, Watterson's satirical essays serve to attack both sides,
   criticizing both the commercial mainstream and the artists who are
   supposed to be "outside" it. Walking contemplatively through the woods,
   not long after he began drawing his "Dinosaurs in Rocket Ships Series",
   Calvin tells Hobbes:


   Calvin and Hobbes

      The hard part for us avant-garde post-modern artists is deciding
     whether or not to embrace commercialism. Do we allow our work to be
    hyped and exploited by a market that's simply hungry for the next new
    thing? Do we participate in a system that turns high art into low art
                 so it's better suited for mass consumption?

    Of course, when an artist goes commercial, he makes a mockery of his
     status as an outsider and free thinker. He buys into the crass and
   shallow values art should transcend. He trades the integrity of his art
                            for riches and fame.

                       Oh, what the heck. I'll do it.


   Calvin and Hobbes

   Such sentiments echo Watterson's own struggles with his Syndicate over
   merchandising issues.

Distorted reality

   On several occasions, Watterson began a strip with a distorted view of
   reality: inverted colors, all objects turning "neo-cubist", or the
   world turning to black-and-white without outlines, for example. Only
   Calvin and Hobbes are able to perceive these changes, which the reader
   can interpret as their way of seeing certain situations, issues and
   subjects which he has difficulty understanding or accepting.

   In the Tenth Anniversary Book, Watterson acknowledges that most of
   these strips were metaphors for his own conflicts, typically against
   his syndicate's desire to produce Calvin and Hobbes merchandise.
   Accused of only seeing issues in "black and white" (Calvin's reply of
   "Sometimes that's the way things are!" was directly taken from his
   response to this accusation)—e.g., crass commercialism versus artistic
   integrity, with nothing in between—Watterson chose to illustrate the
   situation literally, dropping Calvin into a world where everything had
   lost shades of grey. Conversely, the "neo-cubist" strip emerged from
   the way Watterson found himself "paralyzed by being able to see all
   sides of an issue".

Passage of time

   When the strips were originally published, Calvin's settings were
   seasonally appropriate for the Northern hemisphere. Calvin would be
   seen building snowmen or sledding during the wintertime, and outside
   activities such as water balloon fights would replace school during the
   summer. Christmas and Halloween strips were run during those times of
   year.

   Although Watterson depicts several years' worth of holidays, school
   years, summer vacations, and camping trips, Calvin is never shown to
   age nor have any birthday celebrations (the only birthday shown was
   that of Susie Derkins). This is fairly common among comic strips;
   consider the children in Charles Schulz's Peanuts, most of whom existed
   without aging for decades. Likewise, the characters in George
   Herriman's Krazy Kat celebrate the New Year but never grow old, and
   young characters like Ignatz Mouse's offspring never seem to grow up.
   Since this is such a common phenomenon, readers are likely to suspend
   disbelief, as most of them do about Calvin's precocious vocabulary,
   accepting that he "was never a literal six-year-old".

Social criticisms

   In addition to his criticisms of art and academia, Watterson often used
   the strip to comment on American culture and society. As the strip
   avoids reference to actual people or events (aside from one strip where
   a television is shown with a thought balloon mentioning the name of
   Karl Marx), Watterson's commentary is necessarily generalized. He
   expresses frustration with public decadence and apathy, with
   commercialism, and with the pandering nature of the mass media. Calvin
   is often seen "glued" to the television, while his father speaks with
   the voice of the author, struggling to impart his values on Calvin.

   Hobbes also speaks on Calvin's unwholesome habits, but from a more
   cynical perspective; he is more likely to make a wry observation than
   actually intervene. Sometimes he merely looks on as Calvin
   inadvertently makes the point himself. In one instance, Calvin tells
   Hobbes about a story in which machines turn humans into zombie slaves.
   He then exclaims, "My TV show is on!" and sprints from the room in a
   panic to watch it.

   Contrariwise, at times Calvin is the one doing the criticizing of
   culture. For example, when Calvin and Hobbes stumble onto a heap of
   litter, they get angered at the people who pollute the world. Calvin
   had once said, in response to man's exploitation and destruction of
   nature, "I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere
   in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us," and "I
   wonder if you can refuse to inherit the world."

   Calvin is also slightly misanthropic, given how some of the people in
   the world (particularly at school) cruelly treat him. Calvin admires
   that Hobbes isn't human, a fact the tiger trumpets quite a bit himself.
   However, the strip doesn't shy from sentimentality. Characters often
   hug and vocalize their affections. "Not so hard," Calvin sobs, embraced
   by his animal friend, "...You squeeze my tears out." Certainly, Calvin
   and Hobbes is as emotionally diverse as it is intellectually curious.

The main characters

Calvin

   Calvin

   Named after 16th century theologian John Calvin (founder of Calvinism
   and a strong believer in predestination), Calvin is an impulsive,
   imaginative, energetic, curious, intelligent, and often selfish
   six-year-old, whose last name the strip never gives. Despite his low
   grades, Calvin has a wide vocabulary range that rivals that of an adult
   as well as an emerging philosophical mind. "You know how Einstein got
   bad grades as a kid?" he says. "Well, mine are even worse!" He commonly
   wears his distinctive striped shirt. Watterson has described Calvin
   thus:
     * "Calvin is pretty easy to do because he is outgoing and
       rambunctious and there's not much of a filter between his brain and
       his mouth."
     * "I guess he's a little too intelligent for his age. The thing that
       I really enjoy about him is that he has no sense of restraint, he
       doesn't have the experience yet to know the things that you
       shouldn't do."

   On many occasions, Calvin sees himself in one of his many alternate
   guises: as the astronaut and explorer Spaceman Spiff, the superhero
   Stupendous Man, the private eye Tracer Bullet, and many others (see
   Calvin's alter-egos).

Hobbes

   Hobbes

   In classic comic tradition of sidekicks, Hobbes represents Calvin's
   potential maturity, and externalized conscience. A comic about a young
   boy throwing slushballs into a neighbour girl's head would be sad and
   trite without Hobbes there to wisely tease him, "You think she's cute,
   right?"

   From most characters' point of view, Hobbes is Calvin's stuffed tiger.
   However, from Calvin's perspective, Hobbes is as alive and real as
   anyone in the strip. He is named after 17th century philosopher Thomas
   Hobbes, who had what Watterson described as "a dim view of human
   nature." Hobbes is much more rational and aware of consequences than
   Calvin, but seldom interferes with Calvin's troublemaking beyond a few
   oblique warnings — after all, Calvin will be the one to get in trouble
   for it, not Hobbes. Hobbes also has the habit of regularly stalking and
   pouncing on Calvin, most often when Calvin returns home from school.

   From Calvin's point of view, Hobbes is an anthropomorphic tiger, much
   larger than Calvin and full of his own attitudes and ideas. But when
   the perspective shifts to any other character, readers see merely a
   little stuffed tiger. This is, of course, an odd dichotomy, and
   Watterson explains it thus:


   Calvin and Hobbes

    When Hobbes is a stuffed toy in one panel and alive in the next, I'm
    juxtaposing the "grown-up" version of reality with Calvin's version,
              and inviting the reader to decide which is truer.


   Calvin and Hobbes

   Although the first strips clearly show Calvin capturing Hobbes by means
   of a snare (with tuna fish as the bait), a later comic ( 1 August 1989)
   seems to imply that Hobbes is, in fact, older than Calvin, and has been
   around his whole life. Watterson eventually decided that it was not
   important to establish how Calvin and Hobbes had first met.

Supporting characters

Calvin's family

   Calvin's mother and father are for the most part typical Middle
   American middle-class parents; like many other characters in the strip,
   their relatively down-to-earth and sensible attitudes serve primarily
   as a foil for Calvin's outlandish behaviour. Calvin’s father is a
   patent attorney; his mother is a stay-at-home mom. Both parents go
   through the entire strip unnamed, except as "Mom" and "Dad", or such
   pet names as "hon" and "dear." Watterson has never given Calvin's
   parents names "because as far as the strip is concerned, they are
   important only as Calvin's mom and dad." This ended up being somewhat
   problematic when Calvin's Uncle Max was in the strip for a week and
   couldn't refer to the parents by name, and was one of the main reasons
   that Max never reappeared.

Susie Derkins

   Susie Derkins, the only character with both first and last names, is a
   classmate of Calvin who lives in his neighbourhood. She first appeared
   early in the strip as a new student in Calvin's class. In contrast with
   Calvin, she is polite and diligent in her studies, and her imagination
   usually seems mild-mannered and civilized, consisting of stereotypical
   young girl games such as playing house or having tea parties with her
   stuffed animals. Her approach to these games is arguably more modern,
   however, some might say even cynical. (In a game of "house" she usually
   casts herself as the industrious working wife while Calvin is the
   deadbeat husband or some version thereof.) "Derkins" was the nickname
   of Watterson's wife's family beagle, and he liked the name so much he
   named this character after it. As much as either of them hate to admit,
   Calvin and Susie have quite a bit in common. (Susie is shown on
   occasion with a stuffed rabbit dubbed "Mr. Bun," and Calvin always has
   Hobbes.)

Miss Wormwood

   Miss Wormwood is Calvin's world-weary teacher, named after the
   apprentice devil in C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters. She perpetually
   wears polka-dotted dresses, and serves, like others, as a foil to
   Calvin's mischief. Calvin's response to the tedium of schoolwork is
   endless flights of imagination. His teacher is waiting to retire, takes
   a lot of medication, and is apparently a heavy smoker and drinker.
   According to Calvin, "rumor has it she's up to two packs a day,
   unfiltered."

Rosalyn

   Rosalyn is a teenaged high-school senior and Calvin's official
   babysitter, whenever Calvin's parents need a night out. She is the only
   babysitter able to tolerate Calvin's antics, which she uses to demand
   raises and advances from Calvin's desperate parents. She is also,
   according to Watterson, the only person Calvin truly fears— certainly
   she is his equal in cunning, and doesn't hesitate to play as dirty as
   he does. Rosalyn's boyfriend, Charlie, never appears in the strip but
   calls her occasionally. These calls are often interrupted by Calvin.
   Originally she was created as a nameless, one-shot character with no
   plans to appear again; however, Watterson decided he wanted to retain
   her unique ability to intimidate Calvin, which, ultimately, led to many
   more appearances.

Moe

   Moe is the archetypical bully character in Calvin & Hobbes, "a
   six-year-old who shaves", who always shoves Calvin against walls,
   demanding his lunch money and calling him "Twinky." Moe is the only
   regular character who speaks in an unusual font: his (frequently
   monosyllabic) dialogue is shown in crude, lower-case letters. Watterson
   describes Moe as "every jerk I've ever known." And while Moe is not
   smart, he is, as Calvin puts it, streetwise—"That means he knows what
   street he lives on." He constantly makes fun of Calvin.

Recurring subject matter

   There are several repeating themes in the work, a few involving
   Calvin's real life, and many stemming from his incredible imagination.
   Some of the latter are clearly flights of fancy, while others, like
   Hobbes, are of an apparently dual nature and don't quite work when
   presumed real or unreal.

Cardboard boxes

   Over the years Calvin has had several adventures involving corrugated
   cardboard boxes, in which he adapts them for many different uses. His
   inventions include the Transmogrifier, a flying time machine, the
   Duplicator, and a "Cerebral Enhance-o-tron".

   Building the Transmogrifier is accomplished by turning a cardboard box
   upside-down, attaching an arrow to the side and writing a list of
   choices on the box. (To turn into an animal not stated on the box, just
   write the name of the animal on the remaining space.) Upon turning the
   arrow to a particular choice and pushing a button, the transmogrifier
   instantaneously rearranges the subject's "chemical configuration"
   (accompanied by a loud zap).

   The Duplicator was also made from a cardboard box, except this time it
   was turned on its side. The "Zap" heard after a person was successfully
   transmogrified was replaced with a "Boink", coining the title of one of
   the collections after Hobbes remarks "Scientific progress goes
   'boink'?" Calvin intended to clone himself and let the clone do his
   work for him. However, the clone, being just like Calvin, refuses to do
   any work.

   The Time Machine was made from the same box, this time right-side up.
   Passengers climb into the open top, and must be wearing protective
   goggles while in time-warp. Calvin first intends to travel to the
   future and obtain future technology which he could use to become rich
   in the present time. Unfortunately, he turns the time machine the wrong
   way and ends up in prehistoric times.

Calvinball

   Calvinball is a game played almost exclusively by Calvin and Hobbes as
   a rebellion against organized team sports (like baseball), although the
   babysitter Rosalyn plays on one occasion. Calvinball is played with
   whatever implements are available, often a volleyball (called the
   "Calvinball" itself) and a pair of wickets, and the rules are invented
   as the game goes along. The three consistent rules are:
    1. that the set of rules on play can never be the same twice
    2. that everyone who plays Calvinball must wear a mask
    3. no one is allowed to question the masks.

   Either player may change any rule at any time (with the exception of
   those rules stated above). Scoring is also entirely arbitrary: Hobbes
   has reported scores of "Q to 12" and "oogy to boogy." Calvinball is
   essentially a game of wits and creativity, rather than purely physical
   feats, and in this Hobbes is typically more successful than Calvin
   himself. It is often regarded as an example of nomic.

   In the Tenth Anniversary Book, Watterson states that the greatest
   number of questions he receives concern Calvinball and how to play it.
   He then answers the question once and for all: "People have asked how
   to play Calvinball. It's pretty simple: you make up the rules as you
   go."

Wagon and sled

   Calvin and Hobbes frequently ride downhill in a wagon, sled, or
   toboggan (depending on the season) and ponder the meaning of life,
   death, God, and a variety of other weighty subjects as they hurtle
   downhill. The wagon and sled were conceived because of Bill Watterson's
   aversion to "talking heads" comic strips, as a way of making them
   visually exciting. The course of the vehicle and the obstacles that the
   characters negotiate as they travel also frequently serve as metaphors
   for and parallel to the subject of conversation (life becomes a blur,
   Calvin says as he speeds along), and the rides almost always end in a
   spectacular crash.

Snowballs and snowmen

   During winter, Calvin often engages in snowball fights (which he almost
   always loses), usually throwing them at Susie but almost always
   resulting in Calvin getting buried in the snow as retaliation. He
   sometimes teams up with Hobbes for snowball fights, but Calvin can't
   seem to resist also sneaking up on Hobbes, who always seems to get the
   drop on him instead.

   Calvin also builds snowmen; but these are usually grotesque, monstrous
   deformed creatures. In a notable storyline, Calvin builds a snowman and
   brings it to life using the power "invested in him by the mighty and
   awful snow demons". The snowman immediately proves to be evil
   (reminiscent of Frankenstein) and becomes what Calvin calls a "deranged
   mutant killer monster snow goon". This storyline gave the title to the
   Calvin and Hobbes book Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster
   Snow Goons.

   Calvin, unlike Hobbes, thinks of snowmen as a fine art. Bill Watterson
   has said that this is a parody of art's “ pretentious blowhards.” Once,
   out of ideas, Calvin signed the snow-covered landscape with a stick and
   declared all the world's snow as his own work of art, offering to sell
   it to Hobbes for a million dollars. Hobbes mellowly responds, "Sorry,
   it doesn't match my furniture," and walks away, leaving Calvin to
   contemplate, "The problem with being avant-garde is knowing who's
   putting on who."

G.R.O.S.S.

   G.R.O.S.S. is Calvin's anti-girl secret club. The name is an acronym
   (reminiscent of Valerie Solanas' S.C.U.M) that stands for Get Rid Of
   Slimy girlS (Calvin admits "slimy girls" is a bit redundant as—of
   course—all girls are slimy, "but otherwise it doesn't spell anything").
   Based in a treehouse, the main objective of G.R.O.S.S. is to exclude
   girls, chiefly Calvin's neighbour Susie Derkins. Calvin and Hobbes are
   its only members, and wear newspaper chapeaux during meetings. Their
   anthem is generally unknown, but begins: "Oh Grohoooss! Best Club in
   the Cosmos."

School and homework

   Calvin hates school and its attendant early-morning risings, irate
   teachers, homework, and fellow students. While at school, he commonly
   visualizes the building as a hostile planet and his teacher and
   principal as vicious aliens. Calvin usually lacks the company of Hobbes
   at school, although sometimes Hobbes does his homework and reading
   while Calvin watches TV or reads comic books. In general, Calvin is
   depicted as a student who is unable to concentrate in class, has
   difficulty interacting with other students, and struggles with
   homework. On occasion, he gets good marks and positive feedback for
   work, but these are usually short-lived victories.

   His dislike of school does not necessarily mean that Calvin is
   unintelligent; the strip often depicts him as being very smart, in
   fact, with unusual knowledge of philosophy and odd vocabulary. Rather,
   Calvin seems to dislike school because of its rules and forced learning
   of things which he is not necessarily interested in. In one strip,
   Calvin's father asks why he doesn't try harder at school, considering
   how much he loves to learn about subjects like dinosaurs; Calvin simply
   replies that they don't learn about dinosaurs in school. His inability
   to concentrate is portrayed as more due to his active imagination than
   to any mental handicap.

Santa Claus and “being good”

   As Christmas approaches each year, Calvin feels the need to behave
   himself so as to maximize his chances of receiving gifts from Santa. He
   is often tempted to throw snowballs at Susie, and the ways through
   which he resists or succumbs to the temptation are humorous due to
   their insight into how difficult it is for people in general to do the
   right thing. These situations often lead Calvin to ponder philosophical
   questions, such as the difference between "acting good" and "being
   good", the idea that someone who is "naturally good" might deserve less
   for being good than does someone who must work hard at it, the question
   of whether future good acts can "make up" for previous (and unrelated)
   bad acts, etc. In many strips, Calvin questions the nature of Santa
   Claus' "operation", and even the existence of Santa himself. In the
   end, Calvin decides to believe in Santa and to go along with trying to
   be good, justifying his decision by using what is essentially Pascal's
   Wager.

Books

   There are eighteen Calvin and Hobbes books, published from 1987 to
   2005. These include eleven collections, which form a complete archive
   of the newspaper strips, except for a single daily strip from November
   28, 1985. (The collections do contain a strip for this date, but it is
   not the same strip that appeared in some newspapers. The alternate
   strip, a joke about Hobbes taking a bath in the washing machine, has
   circulated around the Internet.) "Treasuries" usually combine the two
   preceding collections (abeit leaving out some strips) with bonus
   material, and include colour reprints of Sunday comics.

   A complete collection of Calvin and Hobbes strips, in three hardcover
   volumes, with a total 1440 pages, was released on October 4, 2005, by
   Andrews McMeel Publishing. It also includes colour prints of the art
   used on paperback covers, the Treasuries' extra illustrated stories and
   poems, and a new introduction by Bill Watterson, who is now happily
   teaching himself to paint. It is notable, however, that the alternate
   1985 strip is still omitted, and two other strips ( January 7, 1987,
   and November 25, 1988) have altered dialogue.

   To celebrate the release, Calvin and Hobbes reruns were made available
   to newspapers from Sunday, September 4, 2005, through Saturday,
   December 31, 2005, and Bill Watterson answered a select dozen questions
   submitted by readers. Like current contemporary strips, weekday Calvin
   and Hobbes strips now appear in colour print when available, instead of
   black and white as in their first run.

   Early books were printed in smaller format in black and white that were
   later reproduced in twos in colour in the "Treasuries" (Essential,
   Authoritative, and Indispensable) — except for the contents of Attack
   of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons. Those Sunday strips
   were never reprinted in colour until the Complete collection was
   finally published in 2005. Every book since Snow Goons has been printed
   in a larger format with Sundays in colour and weekday and Saturday
   strips larger than they appeared in most newspapers.

   Remaining books do contain some additional content; for instance, The
   Calvin and Hobbes Lazy Sunday Book contains a long watercolor Spaceman
   Spiff epic not seen elsewhere until Complete, and The Calvin and Hobbes
   Tenth Anniversary Book contains much original commentary from
   Watterson. Calvin and Hobbes: Sunday Pages 1985-1995 contains 36 Sunday
   strips in colour alongside Watterson's original sketches, prepared for
   an exhibition at The Ohio State University Cartoon Research Library.

   An officially licensed children's textbook entitled Teaching with
   Calvin and Hobbes was published in a limited single print-run in 1993.
   The book includes various Calvin and Hobbes strips together with
   lessons and questions to follow, such as "What do you think the
   principal meant when he said they had quite a file on Calvin?" (p108).
   The book is rare and increasingly sought by collectors.
   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_and_Hobbes"
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