Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for September 16, 2013

Hobbes dont look so smug.

What an evidence of love!!

Hobbes could express his love with a nice card or how about by doing Calvin’s homework?

So that’s where Louie learned his greeting !

If he ever needed hyperbole, it would be now.

Cal is lucky Hobbes was onnly playing freight train. Cats ARE carnivores, and even a stuffed tiger is still a tiger.

like speed train….!!!!

I’m sure if Calvin actually behaved in school (which I doubt he did today), he wouldn’t feel like that.

Just when you feel things couldn’t get any worse, there’s always a friend nearby to help prove you wrong.

No notebook, no homework.

Farmer Brown had a day like that, just a few months ago:Click here: Calvin and Hobbes (April 11, 1993)Click here: B.C. (January 4, 2005)Click here: Peanuts (February 19, 1966)

Hobbes has a point.

There is the mental ruff day, then there is the physical ruff day. Both at the same time: ouch.

And how do you feel now, Calvin?

There’s no hypobole, and that’s an understatement!

@Hobbes,“Into every life some rain must fall.”However, in Farmer Brown case, “When it rains, it pours.”

I always watch to see if one of my students has an expression on his face like that when I come to tutor him after school (especially my 7-year-old student) so I’ll know if he needs me to be extra kind and patient with him that day.

Funny, Calvin’s days are ALL like that — even on Cartoon Saturdays, when he gets so wired from all the TV cartoons and the Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs that he has to literally be thrown outside (or drop-kicked).

Evidently stuffed tigers travel faster than the speed of light.:O

It’s nice that Hobbes greets Calvin when he’s home from school.

But it looks like Calvin would beg to differ!

xxx

Who do you think will play in the Hyper Bowl this year?

@lizilu: The Hyper Bowl? That sounds like the championship game for Calvinball.

@MPeters and @Grog: Johnny Hart drew that B.C. strip two years before he died. The comics lost an incredible wit with his death.

@JP Steve: That’s Thor, the inventor of the wheel and the calendar. He looks a bit unusual because of the angle. But the characters in the modern B.C. strips all look somewhat different now that Johnny no longer draws them; so, once you get used to the newer versions, Johnny’s drawings can start to look unusual.

@JP Steve: By the way, if you look for that B.C. Strip in GoComics under the date that I listed, January 4 2005, you won’t find it. GoComics accidentally put it under January 4 2004. They made a similar mistake with some other January B.C. Strips over several years.

@Grog: It’s great that you still use the name Grog, in memory of the “good ol’ days,” even though you no longer read the strip. It’s really tough for Johnny’s successors trying to continue B.C. and the Wizard of Id, because Johnny already used up so many good ideas, and he had such genius. You could tell that Johnny was already struggling to keep it fresh during his last few years, but he was still coming up with some great ones on occasion. Maybe his successors need all of us to submit ideas to them online.

Awww, how sweet of Hobbes to help his dear friend in his moment of need. This is heart warming!

Welcome back Hobbes. I missed your wit, and warmth, and gentle wisdom, and humor.

Thanks, Thirdguy. I was really hoping you were still around.

Hobbes, I know that Johnny’s buddies whom many of the characters were modeled after would often submit ideas that Johnny would use. Not that Johnny didn’t have his own ideas, but having those other ideas for gags certainly didn’t hurt. I just don’t know how the new regime would take to our ideas.

@Grog: Yes, Johnny Hart didn’t have Charles Schulz’s hangup, where Schulz refused to use any idea that anyone gave to him. Schulz even said that he was sometimes disappointed when someone gave him a really good idea, because he might have thought of it in the future, but now that someone else had suggested it, he could never use it. I wish Charles Schulz had been willing to accept other people’s ideas during the second half of his career, because it was just too difficult for him to maintain the high standards that he had set during his first 25 years. Even a creative genius has his limitations.

And like C&H, I have read B.C. and Peanuts from the very beginning. In the latter cases, the strips from the 50’s and 60’s were among the very best.

I think Watterson probably chose to hang it up at the right time. It’s best to hang it up at the top of your game.

Brian Bassett chose to abandon Adam@home for Red & Rover. I abandoned Adam about 6 months later, but I love Brian’s work on Red & Rover.

That’s one way to keep your ideas fresh.

@Grog: I think we have been living during the golden age of comic strips. So many good ideas have been used up now, that it’s hard to imagine how much will be left in another 50 years. Great modern cartoonists like Brian Bassett are amazing but becoming more and more rare, given the increasing difficulty of still trying to be original. Classical music had its golden age, and now it is extremely difficult for modern orchestral composers to be original and still create something that will be as long-lasting as the work done by the classical masters. Comic strips are similar, where in many cases it has become more enjoyable to read strips from the past. Perhaps even comedy movies and TV sitcoms have had their golden age.

Yes—and with all things reused, the key is not how original the idea may be, but how well you make it work using the details unique to your style.

Calvin, there is always litotes: it’s not so bad…