Why you should read Calvin and Hobbes

For many adult like myself admitting to finding joy in something as child-like as a comic strip could seem daunting. To openly confess to a love of 2000AD may have been acceptable to a niche audience, but for a supposedly mature being to espouse a love of Fred Basset or Peanuts risked some form of perceived derision. No more it seems! Film studios buying into the Marvel and DC universes have made comic-book culture so mainstream that the childishness one may once have been accused of seems to have been replaced by a relish for the fantastically nerdish.  

Yet with a comic strip like Peanuts there is still a risk of an adult looking like they’ve never really grown out of something. Well firstly, so what? Does it matter? It makes me happy and its harmless so where is the problem? All fine unarguable sentiments. But, there is something deeper here to. One may read them one way in childish enthusiasm, but in later life see something much deeper in these strips. This is certainly true for Calvin and Hobbes.

The strip follows the misadventures of 6-ish year old Calvin a willful force of nature and his best friend stuffed tiger Hobbes who may or may not exist as a fully developed character only in Calvin’s psyche. Bill Watterson who penned the strip beautifully – make no mistake he is an artist, some of his panoramic views and playing with perspectives are beautiful – was political science major at university. This background shines through, and not just in the naming of the main protagonists.

The strip ran for 10 years from 1985 to 1995 and was much loved by a large audience. Not only did Watterson pull off the all too rare feat of getting out at the top, but he engaged his audiences in deeper thought than one might expect. There are philosophical points being made, there are social commentaries and subtle nuances that occasionally give the reader serious pause.

Famously, Watterson never licensed his characters. Not making the millions, say Jim Davis did from Garfield seems to have caused him not one iota of pain. As he said himself, he wasn’t interested in ‘removing all the subtlety from my work to condense it for a product’. Anyone who has read the strips would have to agree. There is an ongoing conversation with the audience that cannot be boiled down to sound-bites. Yes, there are punchlines and sight-gags and one liners, but also something deeper and more connection making than you could ever print on a t-shirt!

This is a cartoon after all that considers from a nuanced ‘childish’ perspective the existence of God, mortality, what reality actually is and the destructive nature of our culture.

So, despite flights of fantasy, tie-travelling adventures, seeing alien worlds and dinosaurs in a child’s imaginative world-view this is still a very engaging, authentic and deeply satisfying strip.

You can get the complete works, and one would certainly recommend it for immersion, but if not why not get one of the shorter fireside collections, immerse yourself and discover just what depths can be hidden away for what the foolishly uninitiated might mistakenly think of as a childish genre?