Calvin and Hobbes
From Conservapedia
Calvin and Hobbes was a newspaper comic strip written by Bill Watterson, which ran for just over ten years, from November 18, 1985, through December 31, 1995. The comic, which benefited from a very literary author in Bill Watterson, drew on common themes of childhood and innocence, as well as more philosophical topics, ranging from the meaning of life to attempts to deal with the complexity of modern life.
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Characters
Calvin, a six-year old boy, was the star of the comic. Perpetually looking for and causing trouble, Calvin's destructive tendencies nonetheless stemmed less from a true "mean streak," and more from being too intelligent for his own age, as evinced by his large vocabulary in the comic. Calvin enjoyed an active imagination, setting a backdrop for the strip's frequently fanciful settings, in Calvin's own imagination.
Hobbes was - to the world at large - Calvin's stuffed tiger. To Calvin, Hobbes was a real, live tiger, domesticated and friendly, who was his lifelong companion and best (and possibly only) friend. When portrayed from an adult's perspective, Hobbes was always a stuffed animal; from Calvin's, a real tiger. He entered the strip in the very first comic, where Calvin describes to his father how he has "caught" a tiger with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Calvin's Personae
Scenes from Calvin and Hobbes only took place in the "real world" about half of the time. The other half of the strips took place in Calvin's imagination, where he would become, in his mind, one of many characters. Frequent return character-personae were:
- A dinosaur (any breed) terrorizing a city or his schoolyard.
- Spaceman Spiff, a science-fiction hero in the Flash Gordon sense of the word.
- Stupendous Man, a superhero who wears his underwear over his pants.
- Tracer Bullet, a film noir detective hero in the tradition of The Maltese Falcon and Humphrey Bogart.
Strip Themes
Aside from standard childhood reminiscing that defined Bill Watterson's style, Calvin's perspective compassed more adult topics, such as the nature of good and evil, environmentalism (often explored from Hobbes' perspective, as a wild animal, missing the forest), coping with increasing complexity and technology, the importance of creativity and the stifling effects of popular culture and television, and the necessity for a rugged individualism.
See Also
- A site listing the full text of every Calvin and Hobbes comic, ever.
- A daily Calvin and Hobbes strip, provided by GoComics, here.
