Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for January 23, 2022

Yes, it’s over quick, but are you gratified?

It looks like Watterson’s sabbatical is finally over, since this is the first appearance of those custom Sunday formats the strip later became known for!

Calvin has so much in common with Bart Simpson. For one thing, they’re still kids.

When Calvin grows up and returns to this hill as an adult he will find it’s only three feet high

Well, it has taken me forever to reach 37 (approximately four more months until 38).

If you drive like that you will not be 7.

More wonderful art work from Watterson! I love Hobbes’ expression in panel four, as they go over the cliff.

That twist ending is very nicely done.

You’ll find that a lot of things end quick, Calvin!

I can hear, so clearly, Yoda talking to Calvin, "This one, a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away… to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was.

Calvin is right about one thing. It’s taking him practically forever to be a 6 year-old.

Hobbes isn’t saying much. He probably realizes the gravity of the situation.

Why are you wasting precious time talking, Calvin?

Life in a nutshell.

“Live fast, die young, leave a pretty corpse.” Calvin’s well on his way to that one.

Thank goodness the snow around that rock is deep and soft!

Happens a lot, kid. Get used to it.

Just think of how long that rock had to wait for you to come along and hit it.

Fifth panel looks like my backyard.

The Zen of Calvin. The Count may order a framed copy of this strip for our library.

Now, this is real life’s picture in a flash.

Reminds me the the Adam Sandler movie with the remote control, Click!

And right there is the genius of Watterson in one strip.

You never want to get where you are going with snow in your ears…

Carpe Diem, Calvin – I think that means a fish a day

Considering death is at the end of the road, I’ll take my time, thank you.

Let’s face it, 99% of us were the same way at Calvin’s age. Looking back now, I’m wondering what the big rush was.

Calvin’s whinning could be less if he realizes that he is lucky to escape out of the adventure with all his limbs intact. He would also focus on the scenery on the way.

We had some sled hills like that. Ended by going over banks into creeks.

A true observation on life, “Gosh, that was over quick.”

There’s some very profound philosophy in Calvin and Hobbes strips.

That was because you talked the whole way through it. A metaphor, I am sure.

7/10

Life in a nutshell.

30 years in the first grade.

Should have taken in some scenery along the way.

I like how the sled never touches the snow — like a hover-craft :)

Perfect epitaph for grave marker “Gosh, that was over quick!”

Actually, a sled with runners bogs down in loose, deep snow.

Athena Orchard, who passed on not so much older than you, Calvin, realized that “Happiness is a direction, not a destination.”

They sure don’t make sleds like that anymore. Practically indestructible!

The first new strip of 1992, after Bill Watterson’s first sabbatical (and thus the first Sunday strip to introduce the new panel format)! But now they are going to be out of sync with the daily strips; I hope you guys at GoComics can fix it or something…

Ah, the custom Sundays have started. We’re in for a treat.

Life. In a nutshell…

If you don’t pay attention to “now”, you won’t know when you arrive at “later” and you’ll miss “pretty soon” all together.

Guess there wasn’t time to smell the roses this run

Well, THAT shut the kid up!!

Charming! But he is right. I remember sledding as a boy (we had the best hill in the neighborhood). It was over way too quickly then you had to trudge back up a hill…through the snow! But still – a wonderful childhood memory.

I have been “gratified” with: the love of a wonderful wife for 20 years [THAT was over much too quickly]; three great children; three fantastic grandkids; two of the very best parents; a best friend who was my brother; my wife’s family who are beyond compare; and uncles, aunts and cousins of great value. But after years of pandemic hermitization when my time comes, I won’t be thinking that was over quick; it will be more along the line of “About damned time!”

First Sunday Watterson drew with his custom format.

Oh to have had a hill nearby when I was a kid! I got to sled down a hill one day when I was 7 or 8.

Philosophical commentary from Calvin as he tumbles heels over head.

Why patience is a virtue.

The biggest problem is that Instant gratification takes too long.

This is a classic example of why Calvin And Hobbes was the best. comic. ever.

“We live on the future: “tomorrow,” “later on,” “when you have made your way,” “you will understand when you are old enough.” Such irrelevancies are wonderful, for, after all, it’s a matter of dying. Yet a day comes when a man notices or says that he is thirty. Thus he asserts his youth. But simultaneously he situates himself in relation to time. He takes his place in it. He admits that he stands at a certain point on a curve that he acknowledges having to travel to its end. He belongs to time, and by the horror that seizes him, he recognizes his worst enemy. Tomorrow, he was longing for tomorrow, whereas everything in him ought to reject it. That revolt of the flesh is the absurd.” – Albert Camus: Myth of Sisyphus