Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for July 31, 2022

”Our priority is not to save the planet.” – Tosi Mpanu Mpanu, government official explaining Democratic Republic of Congo’s decision to auction areas of the rainforest for mining.

I don’t think it’s hardly far-fetched.

I love how this advanced alien spaceship has an old-timey radio speaker on it. I can picture the aliens talking like a thirties radio announcer.

What was Calvin’s grade on that writing project? C-?

I’m agreeing with Hobbes here.

And this was 30 years ago, before it became widely known that the predatory aliens were actually Hòmó sapiens. (Ironically, “sapiens” means “wise”.)

It was a Vogon Construction Ship.

Who needs Aliens. We’re good at on our own

An Alien’s gotta make a living.

Wow! This was written in the 70s, well before the progs gained the upper hand and captured the air(waves) and use of resources. How prescient!

Makes me think of the Zone’s “To Serve Man”:

Can you blame them? They get thirsty traveling thousands of light years.

It’s not so much science fiction!

Looking at many comics now 50 years old, we had no idea just how prescient some of them were.

Given the work ethic certain corporations expect, I see this happening on Earth too against other countries, cities, etc.

That’s why I always plead for an air shield like Druidia’s in “Spaceballs” protected by a combination consisting of the numbers 1…..2…..3…..4…..5.

Trying to figure out how they got all the ocean’s water in that saucer. Looks like a few whales would about fill it.

Excellent rhymes by Watterson.

Such a story would be too scary for children and it should not be included in science textbooks. Besides, children are too dumb to get the concept. Instead, let’s talk about how cheap it is to produce the various types of energy.

So was the recommendation of the Texas Energy Commission to the Texas Board of Education which is the largest producer (and therefore cheapest) of school textbooks for the Nation.

Check out the article “Climate Miseducation” in the July issue of Scientific American.

Teach your children well.

If only climate change could be blamed on malevolent aliens. We could just nuke them and … tah-dah, the problem is solved.

opspecial, ultra ammosexual, kat and alfred brown, Calvin politicized his toon. Isn’t that just awful?:

Sadly, this still resonates. Indeed, resonate is too subtle. It is dead on.

sounds like the GOP on climate change

Watterson must have been an Adams fan.

Wow! Deja Vu. I was hoping for a Spaceman Spiff and we got this. Close enough for me.

Kiss July goodbye and brace yourself, August is here t-morrow.

?? Sounds like lyrics from A Chorus Line, a little bit, maybe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TbUl9dhTRg

I know, a head full of music, can’t be helped.

Standard business policy.

Sorry, but today’s strip isn’t very good.

Well, even the best cartoonists have their off days.

All too realistic.

Clearly those aliens are Republicans.

Nowhere near enough.

30 years ago when the strip first ran, there wasn’t all this “us vs them”. It was just a comic noting obviously what was going on in the world. What the heck happened to us since then?

This may be Watterson’s most cynical late period strip. That is saying something.

A science fiction rhyme is a challenge. Well done Calvin. The story is cool too. I makes me wonder, what are we going to do with all of the batteries we are going to be throwing away in the next 50 years? I hear they catch on fire a lot. Maybe they will self destruct?

Unfortunately, nobody heard them, becauze they had already removed the air that might otherwize have carried the sound waves. Also, the humans were too buzy suffocating to pay attention, anyway.

Maybe this is where Hollywood got the idea for Independence Day…

If you had just seen the proper forms to file a compliant we have you plenty of time

Aliens must work for FB and MS.

“Of course we realize we’ve doomed you this day, but for your past acts, you’d be gone anyway…”

So long and thanks for all the fish

And even today, in what calls itself the most scientifically advanced and intelligent nation on Earth, we have people saying things like “I don’t believe in climate change because God wouldn’t let us ruin the planet”.

“If it doesn’t happen before I retire, it’s not my problem.”

Motto found on gravestone of extinct civilization. Believed to be some kind of religious quotation, as it makes no sense in any other context.

If anyone brings up the writing assignment storyline where Calvin says he can’t write:

1. This strip doesn’t share continuity a lot. It does sometimes, but not often.

2. Calvin doesn’t like to do things that are forced upon him.

Macabre and job is a half rhyme in my book.

Neat how they are able to compress all the water and air for transport in that small ship!

Didn’t understand this particular strip as a kid. Only as an adult did I realize it was talking about the environment.

Yet another one of the Fractured Tales of Suspense publications!

Dr Suess off of his anti depressants.

True story (poem) that is in the process of happening due to our own short-sightedness.

Compressed O², H, and N would fit just fine.

Calvin’s flight of fantasy unlimited today. Where is Hobbes when he needs him?

How terrifying, to think aliens from another planet might be just like us!

On the bright side, the aliens are using ocean water for fusion power. They break the molecules apart then fuse them back together to make new water

First Earth Day Was 1970. We were already divided long before that year. Carter installed solar panels; Reagan removed them. The GOP in Nixon’s admin. was already gearing up for what they’re undoing this year.

https://www.arcamax.com/politics/fromtheleft/leonardpittsjr/s-2706500?ezine=615&r=33BvYyGDvBUJEePf4VCRm15KiOt6ItdRA_5DPaVfSjpDOjI4NzU3NjY1MDpKOjIxMzE5NzE6TDo2MTU6UjozNzgzNzM6UzoyNzA2NTAwOlY6MzY "Sixteen years after Al Gore implored us to face “An Inconvenient Truth” and we didn’t, we have seen climate change mutate from a seemingly abstract threat against a theoretical future to a series of unsettling headlines charting an immediate crisis — a right here, right now danger — facing all 8 billion passengers on this spaceship. International weather maps over the past two weeks looked like the Shenandoah Valley in October — a vista of deep reds and golds signifying blazing heat pretty much everywhere. Great Britain — cool, damp Britain — sweltered through its hottest day, ever, triple digits Fahrenheit. Meantime, wildfires have blackened great swaths of Spain, Italy, Portugal and France.

Closer to home, the Colorado River, the artery of water that makes Los Angeles possible, has gone saltine dry. The Great Salt Lake is vanishing, two-thirds of it gone and still shrinking. California is burning — again. The cascade effect of all this, the impact on human and animal migration, on the extinction of bugs, birds and beasts, on weather patterns, on the economy, on air quality, on the habitability of the planet, cannot be overstated."

“We have met the enemy and he is us.”

When the Last Tree Is Cut Down, the Last Fish Eaten, and the Last Stream Poisoned, You Will Realize That You Cannot Eat Money

I expected the yellow ship to be a school bus to take Calvin to school.

Aliens sucking our oceans dry and killing the inhabitants of earth? Great idea for a movie! Maybe have Tom Cruise star in it?

Amen

This was written 30 years ago and yet we are still here. It’s almost like hysterical predictions of the world ending are always wrong

To Serve Man

But that described a utopia where the aliens provided technology to solve all of humanity’s problems, end war, unlimited power and food, etc.

Making the whole earth paradise.

(And encouraging tourism to the alien’s home planet, on a one-way visa).

“Of all the races that could have come and said a big hello to planet Earth, didn’t it just have to be the Vogons.”