Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for July 02, 2019

The kid might have a future as an entomologist — or a horror movie director.

So when Calvin really starts to learn things, Mom and Dad want to get rid of him.

Not pleasant-sounding dinner conversation, is it? But then again, an Andrew Zimmern has a TV devoted to dinner conversation of what what other people bizarrely eat.

Talk about BioLogic!

Has everybody given their salads another quick check for spiders?

Calvin might actually enjoy Stephen King’s work.

Looks like they made the right decision taking him to the library.

Watch that face in the last panel, mom. It could freeze like that.

Mom’s face….

Seems like boys (mostly) catch on to the gorriest parts of a tale.

Since nobody grows up on a farm anymore, schools should skip the museum trips and visit a slaughter house instead … then the meat packing tours … then an ice-cream factory, etc.

Who would NOT want to see the color pictures ?

That’s our Calvin, every family should have one

evil rotten little brat!!!

If it gets him to read and to love libraries, maybe it’s not such a bad thing.

Some people should not read.

Okay, tell the truth: We all secretly thought some variation of “wow, that’s pretty cool” as we read this today, didn’t we?

It’s all quite cool.

Mom your face could freeze that way! My Grandma’s statement when I was a kid .

Sooooooo, what’s for dinner?

They find this gross, and yet most people have no problem eating live oysters or throwing live lobsters into boiling water.

Bugs and spiders are really weird… that’s what got me started in my love of biology.

Lovely choice, Calvin, and so informative! Your an entomologist’s delight (and your parents’ disgust)!

This is great! Mom’s expression—-LOL!

awesome

:’(

There are lots of tiny wasps that do the same thing to caterpillar. The adults drink nectar while they’re on the hunt, so they come to the same flowers that bees like. No one tell Mom what’s really going on in that garden!

While I must agree that Calvin’s observations may not be appropriate for dinner table conversation, I agree with several commentators above. Anything that promotes a love of reading and learning in a child is a positive.

White Anglo-saxon protestant.

Why is Mom angry? This is one time that Calvin has done nothing wrong. Distasteful, perhaps, but not wrong.

Hey, sometimes science isn’t pretty.

The tarantula hawks I’ve seen in the wild are actually quite dazzling, though they do have a disturbing lifestyle. Shiny blue bodies with bright orange wings.

Incidentally, in today’s news, the Paramonovius nightking just got named for a “Game of Thrones” character. It, too, has larvae eating other bugs alive.

These are important things to learn because they are analogies to human life. Did I mention children???

It’s the beginning of an interest in science!!

Well… at least he’s eager about learning for a change.

Mom’s expression is great in panel four .It looks like a bug just crawled up her nose, or she smells something disgusting.

That’s why I believe in maximum corruption of the innocent youth – nothing is more corrupting than exposure to facts!

At that age, if “I like it” then ipso facto “everybody likes it.” One of the saddest things about adulting is that you don’t (usually) share whatever your current enthusiasm is except with people who are already in that camp.

(Yeah, I also get that it’s the supper table, but when else does he get to share with everybody in the family?)