Calvin and Hobbes

[Boober_Gorg]

Don't forget all the fun they had with the transmogrifier/duplicator! Those adventures were among the awesomest (I hope that's a word ...).

 

[Manda:-D]

Scientific progress goes "boink", I believe that story was called.
The transmogrifier storyline was SOO great...

 

[Super Scooter]

That transmogrifier was a great storyline!

I really like the dad, too. He's hillarious. I remember one stcomic where Calvin asked how the ATM machine worked. He told him that when you stuck your card in and punched in your number, this little man behind it with a printing press made p some money and stuck it out for you. "You mean kinda like the guy who lives upstairs in our garage who works the garage door opener?"

 

[HeraLirambar]

Don't forget all the fun they had with the transmogrifier/duplicator! Those adventures were among the awesomest (I hope that's a word ...).

I love the big difference between the two: the transmorgifier had the lid facing down, the duplicator was on it's side.

I really like the dad, too. He's hillarious. I remember one stcomic where Calvin asked how the ATM machine worked. He told him that when you stuck your card in and punched in your number, this little man behind it with a printing press made p some money and stuck it out for you. "You mean kinda like the guy who lives upstairs in our garage who works the garage door opener?"

Or how about when he tried to explain to Calvin about black and white pictures, and said the world was in black and white back then? *VBG*

 

[Super Scooter]

I agree that there's nothing like it out there anymore. But, I appreciate Watterson ending the run when he ran dry creatively. He could have easily done the strip on cruise control for another ten years like Jim Davis has done on Garfield.

Here's what Bill Watterson had to write about that in one of his Calvin and Hobbes comics:
-
Hobbes: "What's this?"
Calvin: "It's a generic snowman. I used to make original snowmen, but it was time-consuming, hard work, so I said, heck, this is crazy! Now I crank out crude imitations of what's already popular! It takes no time or thought, and most people don't care about the difference anyway!"
Hobbes: "So cynical, yet so practical."
Calvin: "And what good is originality if you can't crank it out?"

 

[electricmayhem]

I love Calvin and Hobbes too. I always have at least one of the books going! It's one of the only comics that can make me laugh out loud.

 

[JaniceFerSure]

Calvin & Hobbes fan

I'm glad other MC members enjoy C&H! I have all of the books,have cut out so many comic strips from the newspaper.That comicstrip mentioned in the beginning of the thread,I put that strip on my bulletin board ever once in awhile.The one I have up now is:

"-Ah,what a lovely day to go sailing,eh Marsha?Our new boat is just wonderful,Bradley.
-What do you say we drop anchor and go for a swim,dearest? That sounds delightful,darling!Let's go.
-(ploosh ploosh)

My favorite ones are,so many too name,the transmogrifier & Calvin fighting with Suzy,etc... I miss that strip something awful,glad I have the books to look at again & again. -JaniceFerSure

 

[Erine81981]

Same here. I have three of their books. I loved the Idea of a kid hanging around a stuffed toy. I used to do that and I used my imagination to make a monkey come to life for me. Oh how I miss C&Hs.

 

[minor muppetz]

I have several of the Calvin and Hobbes books, and have been rereading them a bit recently.

I enjoyed one storyline which seems to have a number of twists. It starts off with Calvin ready to turn in his math homework, only for the numbers to leave the paper and the paper to catch on fire, then Ms. Wormwood turns into an alien, and then Calvin wakes up from his dream... Only to remember that he forgot to do his math homework that's due that day, so he and Hobbes get up to do the homework, but when observing the snow outside go back to bed hoping school would be canceled. Then school does become canceled, but instead of doing his homework Calvin plays in the snow all day (it's a wonder his parents didn't check to make sure he finished his homework). And then at school Calvin is worried about getting in trouble for not doing his homework, only for the closing bell to ring right before the teacher is about to collect papers, giving Calvin more time to do his homework. It looks like he's finally learned his lesson, only for him to once again procrastinate ("From now on, business before pleasure... And it'll be a pleasure to get that homework done."). And then the story ends there, with us never knowing if he did get the homework done in time.

And I like the storyline where Calvin accidently breaks his dads binocolars (by throwing it at himself to catch and missing). He spends his time being worried about his dad getting mad, and when he admits to his dad that he broke them, dad yells at him, with Calvin expressing that he already feels bad about it. Eventually the dad apologizes for how he behaved and admits it's not the worst thing he could do ("when you turn 18 you'll probably wreck the car...").

And I like the ones involving the box, such as when he uses it as a time machine to go to the future to pick up the homework he's supposed to do, and when he learns future Calvin didn't do the homework, they blame the Calvin from between when Calvin left and now. And then there's the time the box was used to turn Calvin into a tiger. But I feel the best ones are when he duplicates himself, learns that his dublicate is such a jerk, and becomes horrified when his dublicate makes more duplicates. Not to mention a later storyline where Calvin duplicates his good side, which begins with us not knowing what's going on. In the 10th anniversary book Bill Watterson explained that that's the kind of story that needs to wait until audiences are really familiar with the character.

As for some of my favorite single-story strips, I like the sunday strip where Calvin's mom let's him smoke a cigarrette, and after he does and has a coughing fit, his mom asks if he's learned anything, and what Calvin learns is, "trusting parents can be harmful to your health". And I like the Christmas strip where the dad jokingly acts as if they're just going to put the tree in the garage and not even decorate it. Not to mention a strip that's all pantomime, where Calvin goes to wait for the bus, realises he forgot his lunch, and goes in to get it, at the same time his mom sees the lunch and goes to the bus stop to hand it to Calvin. They eventually find each other, but then the bus leaves. After mom drives him to school and returns home, she sees that they forgot Calvins lunch, to which she screams.

In the 10th anniversary book Bill Watterson said that he thought it felt awkward for the short-lived Uncle Roy to not refer to Calvin's parents by name, which made him decide not to give the parents any regular contacts of their own. But in the strip where Calvin meets Uncle Roy, Roy refers to Calvin's dad as "bro". Wouldn't that be enough? And I wonder if this caused any problems when Rosylin babysat Calvin (Watterson could have at least given Calvin a last name so Rosylan could refer to the parents as Mr. or Mrs. whatever).

 

[D'Snowth]

Now see? If people are going to bump a really old thread, at least do so with the intentions of actually adding some actual input into the conversation that would make the thread worth discussion again. Thank you minor muppetz, your post in this thread was very refreshing.