Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for April 27, 2022

And he does a damn good job of it!

You have to admit it’s a catchy title…..

Hopefully there isn’t a minimum word count. If not, then he should be fine

F

“What else is there to say?!” Where can we start….

Yeah, he may get a point for keeping it short and sweet. Or succinct, if we’re feeling fancy. But that’s all he’ll get….

Not exactly Thomas Hardy

He builds your character.He takes you on exciting camping trips.He provides fact-filled explanations for how the world works. He pays Rosalynd.

Reminds me of when I was in grammar school and we had to describe an art photo. It was a group of things on a table. I wrote,“A bunch of objects bunched together to produce a bunchy effect.”. I got B+ . I guess for honesty.

He breathes. In long pants at work, and short pants when biking.

That’s my Calvin short and sweet answers straight to the point. Of course the teacher will contact Calvin’s parents asking for a parent teacher conference.

You can’t get any clearer than that. Makes me wonder if his dad had some input.

At about Calvin’s age our son had to do an oral presentation. The topic he chase was driving. Mom and dad drive to work. Dad drives him to hockey. His little sister just drives him crazy.

“My dad keeps trying to build ‘character’ in me, and when that fails, he throws me out of the house.”

Well at least he is telling it like he sees it.

I’d guess that the strip mentions it somewhere. Bur what DOES Dad do occupation-wise?

His poll numbers are down. Kind of like…. never mind.

Don’t worry, Calvin! There’s enough time to get things turned around so that you aren’t STILL a horrible human being when you arrive in adulthood. We’re hoping, anyway!

The next parent-teacher conference ought to be interesting…“This is why your son thinks of you…”!

One time I had to write a short biography about my father. I wrote how he had to walk through woods to get to his bus stop for school & would have to bring a rifle. My handwriting was very small so the teacher thought I had written “knife” but forgot the “k”. She didn’t believe that he had to carry a rifle! Anyway, with her edit, he carried a “krifle”.

The assignment and presentation that Calvin is doing destroyed my childhood and isolated me through grade school. My father was the butcher in a rabbit slaughterhouse… My report said something along the lines of “My father kills rabbits for a living.” Not a good lifestyle to be associated with in a community where the majority of my classmates parents worked for government, or had farms, or factory workers. I was looked down on by everyone due to what my father did for a living and didn’t really have friends while growing up.

I can see a trip in his future, it´s becoming clearer, yes ……… it´s the Principles office.

Mainly that he’s boring.

Calvin uzes words like infarction and cerebral correctly, but he doesn’t understand the basic concept of patent law? His intelligence level is inconsistent.

You know, now that I think of it, I’d have a hard time answering that question in a paragraph. I mean really, he was “Dad”. That explained it all.

‘And he shows me how I’m to “build character”…. whatever that means…’

Obviously his poll numbers must be down at the moment. Surely it’s the messaging.

“Dad: The Paragraph”LOL!!!!

Dad: The Paragraph

“It builds character”…

“Because I said so”…

“When I was your age”…

“You’ll thank me when you’re older”….

“Go ask your mother”…

The End.

Great researcher.

I wonder how many kids know what their dads do? I did. Mine ran the X-Ray and Lab departments for a small clinic and I used to hang around there a lot once I was old enough to not be a nuisance. (he even let me do blood counts on occasion)

“Having spent my life studying the subject….”

To be fair, does Calvin really know what his dad does? I feel like what he’s got down is all he knows.

Change the word “Dad” in the title to “Calvin” and Dad could submit it.

Maybe mention that he’s a (boring) patent attorney, likes to go cycling as a hobby, and is a firm believer in how misery builds character.

“Dad, some guy that hangs around the house and bugs us.”

That’s not much of a paragraph.

Then again, what does his dad do? Assuming they mean professionally, it would be a real struggle to come up with a full paragraph. Let’s try:

Calvin’s dad appears to have a very generic white collar job. He goes to work in a suit and tie and carries a brief case. In the occasional panels where we see him at work, he’s sitting at a desk in what kind of looks like a private office with a window overlooking downtown. I(I remember one time Calvin was flying and wanted to fly by his dad’s office building and look in the window to surprise him.) This might suggest he’s fairly senior in his employer’s organization. However, he doesn’t have an administrative assistant to screen his calls, because occasionally Calvin calls him at work and he answers the phone himself. It’s possible that he’s given his family a direct number for emergencies, but Calvin always calls for frivolous reasons, and when the dad picks up he doesn’t seem to know it’s Calvin. So I think not.

He did pay for desk, chair, paper, pen, tiger …

I knew what my Father(and HIS Father)did for a living, and where.I don’t remember having to write about it in school.

He helped to give you life, he works to give you food & shelter… he cares for you…

Maybe the assignment should have been more specific.

I think the title is brilliant by Watterson; but I only know these 2 precedents of any art, in that form: “Superman, the Movie” and “Star Trek: The Motion Picture”. Am I forgetting dozens of other mega-hit productions in the arts?

Speaking of “Star Trek, the Motion Picture”, I just saw the “Director’s Edition” 2022 for the first time, having missed the 2001 revisit and edit by the director. and Wow, the new version puts back enough cuts to make re-watching the film at least a more cogent and appreciable opinion changer. (the music-only scenes of the Enterprise moving through the cloud and other places can maybe 5 minutes to maybe, could it be.., 8 hours?, yeah, no.., probably less. However on the big 4K screen with good sound, it can be a worthy experience for a 1979 film with a bit of 2001/2022 updating)

It’s my job. . . Dad

One sentence can be a paragraph as long as it expresses a complete thought.

Btween the ages of 14 and 24, most son’s Dads aren’t very bright.

Calvin don’t bite the hands that feed you. And one marks to Hobbes for having good vocabulary.

Calvin isn’t quite ready to channel his imagination this certain way.

Calvin’s paragraph is actually better than trying to explain patent law to other 6-year-olds.

Calvin is less curious about his father’s occupation than a 1950’s sitcom kid.

Tomorrow’s strip:

Auctioneer: “On behalf of Mr. Moreau, Mr. Watterson, and the Parents’ Union, thank you for coming out here tonight. Mr. Moreau would like to remind you that all winning bids must be paid upfront, and we are only accepting cash. For our first specimen, who was sold to us this morning after the report about his master was disapproved, we have Calvin. Can be used to shovel snow and clean rooms. Again, this is a fine specimen. No scars, no visible injuries and examined personally by Mr. Moreau’s doctor. Bidding on Calvin will start at $1,000. Do I hear $2,000?”

How is Calvin supposed to do such a report? He does not even know his own father’s name!

That is a paragraph.