Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for March 05, 2023

I’m sure Calvin’s battleship will run out of fuel soon.

Spiff’s mission is over, whether he likes it or not.

Mom should be glad he call her a battle axe.

Head for the bed Calvin! That’s the ONE place that the battleship won’t be able to touch you.;-D

The old battleship is going to hit Spaceman Spiff with a Calvin seeking missile.

No offense, Mom. But to Calvin, everybody else is a hostile alien.

Motherships can be remarkably persistent.

Looks like this battleship has Spiff in a tractor beam.

He’s just about to get a explode o ray across the rear…

Why didn’t Mom go around the table?

But, when they finally get there, both will enjoy deep sleep – for a while.

Great art. Notice that the alien spaceship is the same color as Mom’s sweater.

Explode-O-Ray, I like that!

Someone said recently that “Calvin imagines himself in a cardboard spaceship”. This strip shows that Calvin never imagines himself in a cardboard spaceship but imagines himself as Spaceman Spiff in an imaginary spaceship or on an imaginary planet such as Planet Zok or Planet Zarg. The planets usually have names beginning with Z.

Perhaps the commentator was thinking of the cardboard box which Calvin and Hobbes use as a time machine. Hobbes is usually very reluctant to accompany Calvin in time travel and once stayed in the future talking to his future self before Calvin returned. Readers were divided as to whether it was meant to be real or to be in Calvin’s imagination or to be in Calvin’s and Hobbes’s imaginations.

Mum clearly not enjoying the game as much as Calvin, or maybe not at all.

…and she will probably have to chase him the whole night!

I love how that escape arch looks like a grasping (clutching) hand.

Mom has two aliens driving her. She’s sure to catch Calvin that way.

As my wife told one of my sons, “I’ve done things you haven’t even thought of yet.”

Old age and treachery will win out over youth and enthusiasm any day.

Now, I wish someone would send me to bed.

The Sunday C&H strips are the Mount Everest of comic strips. I love Peanuts as much as any strip but Watterson’s sunday strips are the apex. Two epic strips in a row. When the strips were run in the paper, I’d look a the first panels. If it was a fantasy strip, A Stupendous Man, Spaceman Spiff etc, I’d put my hand over the last panel and try to guess how the fantasy ran parallel to Cal’s situation. I got one right, when Spiff’s ship malfunction and took him into another dimension, where, to quote, “time has no meaning”. I knew he had to be in school. Mr. Watterson, if you read here, thanks for Calvin and Hobbes.

And I almost forgot, “Spiff chug wunka” to y’all. I have to work chug wunka" into a sentence today

Mom’s arm is like a tractor beam.

Just shut the door and Calvin will punk out and fall asleep on his own. BUT, a Father-Son talk is in order! Patience is a virtue…oy

lol

Duct tape! The babysitter’s secret weapon.

Isn’t Calvin the alien on another planet?

You’re a dead man, Calvin.

I wonder if Bill W’s kids were like this or whether HE was like this as a kid.

I love how Calvin calls them aliens. To them, HE’S the alien.

LOL at the face on the front of the alien spaceship.

Mom, this is just starting. Going to bed and staying in bed aren’t the same thing!

Why doesn’t Spiff have a cooler ship, like the Millenium Falcon?

This is The Wolf In Your Midst, reminding everyone to chug wunka responsibly.

If she chased him all night he wouldn’t go to bed

I love Spiff. Have you ever noticed the lenses of his eyewear change shape in every panel? Watterson is genius.

Going to bed, what an evil horrendous tortuous punishment, Ah Zzzzz…

Who would have thought an explode-o-ray would explode?

As I’ve said before (and will probably say again) Mr Watterson loves to draw! It’s a treat that he can spread his wings on the Sunday pages.

Time for mom to consider a straitjacket.

The ol’ Battleship does not seem amused

Calvin must be ON something stronger than sugar coated or triple coated sugar bombs for breakfast.

Calvin is asking for it with his old battleship remark.

The universe isn’t big enough.

I wish Watters’ would do comic books or illustrated novels.

I find the “Spaceman Spiff” strips becoming increasingly predictable.

That “battleship” looks a lot like a B-2 “Spirit” bomber.

Though Calvin needs to brush up on his physics – if he skimmed a planet at near light speed, he wouldn’t even see it as he went past, he would be moving far too fast. If it had an atmosphere, he’d be fried to a crisp in a nanosecond.

Forget hitting anything at that speed, even something as small as that ship traveling at near lightspeed would hit so hard it would knock the planet out of orbit.

Calvin’s mother really needs more of a sense of humor.

Spiff chug wunka, indeed! I need to learn that language.

Mom needs to take one of those little blue pills that Mick Jagger used to song about!

Dad, get up and help if you want to share the bed tonight.

its a spaceship