Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for July 31, 2010

One must suffer for one’s art…

It’s true

Good Morning, Marg, Mike & ♠Lonewolf♠

Keep trying, Calvin…

Hmm, has he invented Mr. Potatohead?

That’s very true! And give us YOUR mercy!

Stay with it, Calvin. It can only go up from here!

G’Morning Mike, Grog & Marg!

That’s the hardest thing is when a child hands you their drawing proudly and they ask you what you think about it. You don’t want to stifle their creativity because they may not want to practice their skills further. My granddaughter has caught on now and usually tells me up front what it is so I can help her to improve it. If she’s lucky she’ll get my Mom’s or my son’s talent so I encourage her everyday to keep it up!

i hate telling kids what i think of their drawings… every time i say the wrong thing. “it’s a slug!” “no, it’s not. it’s me.” “oh. i knew that.” now i just say “that’s beautiful”

Just the fact that no one can understand you doesn’t mean that you are an artist.

My older child has got into habit of writing in big letter on picture, what it is supposed to be. Makes being mom much easier.

Christopher Robin (Milne), son of A.A. Milne, had the same problem, Calvin. According to a then-famous interview, at the dinner table he prayed, “and let these people” - the adults present - “understand about the dragon.”

Amen.

everybody also say that their parents suck

Oh?

There is just so much wrong with that statement, isn’t there, Grog?

cdward, if you’re out there, see my reply to you yesterday about the use of vowels in Hebrew.

How true, ‘No one understands’ - including the artist himself !

Calvin, maybe you need more passion. As Dear Abby said this morning, “Art without passion is mechanical drawing.”

Regarding the comic, am I the only one who gets his art? I got in the habit of just saying, “Tell me about it!” the moment the kids gave a piece of art. I tended to say things like, “Oh, I like this one better than the last one” or even, “I don’t know, that one you did earlier was livelier.” Even had some framed.

The real problem for us with not squashing creativity was the “creations” one of our sons made/makes which can be downright dangerous (if ingenious).

so true!

well Calvin, you do seem to have done well at “drawing” out the erudite.

It’s great art, when no one understands it!

Puddlegum2 some literary advice about choosing your words …

When I use a word, Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone,it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.’ … Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll (also known as Charles Dodgson)

I have wonderful ideas in my head. When I put them on paper they look like Calvin drew them. Do I have a future in art? I can draw the clown and the pirate.

Is Dear Abby still around?? I thought she died.

Puddlegum: I can’t decide if I think you are erudite or merely pedantic.

ho hum

Too much being made of CnH lovers and their style of commenting. Quoting Mother Teresa,”If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” It takes all kinds of people to make a world. If I could find everyone else like I am then I would prefer to be a martian. Cannot we appreciate the variety?

I am no erudite. I do not even know what does it mean.

Puddleglum: In case you didn’t see from yesterday’s comments… Thank you for the compliment on my name, and I like yours as well… I assume it is taken from CS Lewis? Classic.

Oldnmoldy: I have only been around for a few days, but I haven’t seen anything in Puddleglum’s discussions that would be considered ostentatious. But maybe that’s just me!

moronbis: I think that the discussion is a way to appreciate the variety. If we can’t discuss and disagree on our differences then we might as well all be the same!

No one understands Calvin’s work–even he doesn’t!

**Good morning Marg! Good morning Fran and Kizzzy! Good Morning L’Wolf! Good Morning Grog!**

I wonder if that was one of Watterson’s early drawings?

lol…

Sorry folks I like my little friend and his teddy bear ,for what I read and chuckle at. You guys and gals must be missing that. Calvins problem with his drawing reminds me of my attempts,still cant draw.

No, we don’t miss that by and large, ratlum. We just go on to other things from there. :)

Too much Puddleglum2 in one day, however, does tend to loosen everyone else’s philosophical tongues. :))

bacom65, “Abigail Van Buren” is still around as far as I know. It was her twin sister “Ann Landers” who died. The Dear Abby column has been taken over by “Abby’s” daughter. The twins were Esther Pauline and Pauline Esther Lederer. I don’t remember which one was which, though I think Esther was “Ann” and Pauline was “Abby”.

Easiest day’s work Bill Watterson ever put in.

serial demonstrations of one’s erudition and knowledge of grammar and usage on a comics comment board are kind of sad, kind of lame.

Ann Landers is dead. Her sister Abigail Van Buren is 92 and suffering from Alzheimers, but they are both still writing their daily advice columns. Now THAT’S dedication!

I’m really enjoying the literate and literary discussion today! If this keeps up, I’ll have to haul my laptop outside to the hammock under the locust tree and lay me down in a proper environment where I can absorb all these deep, erudite thoughts.

I agree that statement is definitely true.

Well, of course…its a picture of Calvin in a Mr Potato Head costume.

To Johanan - there is very little ‘regular’ about English. It is such a mongrel language. Everything sticks to it.

Calvin draws every bit as good as Bill Watterson does….and vice versa come to think of it.

bacom65 for dear Abby you can google it column still continues the daughter has taken over.

Hang on to your drawings, Calvin. If you grow up to be famous they should be worth a fortune when you’re fifty or sixty years old, if inflation hasn’t robbed them of their value in the meantime….

Isn’t snow his preferred medium, anyway?

When I was Calvin’s age, a teacher told me that I had musical talent, but that art was not my strength. I believed her and went on to enjoy two musical careers, one in performance and one in the business end of it.

After I retired, I decided to take an art class. Much to my amazement, I can draw and love doing it. A new world has opened to me. I have some regret that I didn’t discover this ability sooner, but it is great fun to be a beginner and to explore my artistic potential.

Who knows, Calvin… maybe you’ll find more success if you wait awhile.

JanCinVV said: bacom65, “Abigail Van Buren” is still around as far as I know. It was her twin sister “Ann Landers” who died. The Dear Abby column has been taken over by “Abby’s” daughter. The twins were Esther Pauline and Pauline Esther Lederer. I don’t remember which one was which, though I think Esther was “Ann” and Pauline was “Abby”.

“Ann Landers” was Esther “Eppie” Pauline Friedman Lederer. She died in June, 2002. Her column was then taken over by her (2) editors and renamed “Annie’s Mailbox.”

“Abigail Van Buren” or “Dear Abby” was Eppie’s twin sister, Pauline “Popo” Esther Friedman Phillips. She retired in 1995 with the onset of Alzheimer’s disease (and is still alive as far as I know) . That’s when her daughter, Jeanne Phillips, took over her mother’s column and owns the legal rights to the “Dear Abby” pen name.

Calvin, if the weird and confusing pictures Picasso painted can be worth millions of $$$, then so can yours someday! Remind your mother of this so that she’ll hold onto them for you in preparation of that day!!!!!

A dead person is still writing an advice column?

It’s impressionist, Calvin. No matter what it is, it’s how it appears to you, and that’s perfect.

A Vonnegut by any other name would smell as suspicious.

Wiseguy411, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. The rest of the year was not so good. Actually, he became just ‘a shell of his former self’. Humpty lost face, not to mention the rest of his body. Ultimately, the yolk was on him. ‘They’ couldn’t put Humpty together again. I can’t put his words together either, to make any sense. If a word is just what he chooses it to mean, then it doesn’t matter what word he uses, but nobody will know what he chooses it to mean unless there is exposition. Since you didn’t say what you choose your comments to mean, I will assume that you are only being facetious.

Kinda looks like Spaceman Spud

Picasso’s childhood drawings (by age 5, anyway) were brilliantly observant and astonishingly talented. At 16 he was winning adult art awards with painstaking, inspired classical-themed works in oil. “Science and Charity” is not only a timeless work of great art, but it’s psychologically and even spiritually deep in the nuances of the facial expressions.

Picasso said it took him a lifetime to unlearn how to draw properly. By age 30 he had done the most revolutionary work of all time (Demoiselles d’Avignon), but he kept inventing new stuff - even if it was as simple as mounting the perfect handlebar on the perfect bicycle seat at the perfect angle to make a very expressive, totally convincing goat head.

Anybody who over-uses the word “genius” should spend at least one minute looking (really looking!) at Picasso. Any Picasso.

put put put put…

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