Another ode to Watterson’s genius:
I was given my first “Calvin and Hobbes” collection by an older cousin when I was about ten years old and it was incredible. At first what captivated were the dinosaur strips. Watterson seemed to see these magnificent animals through the same lens as I did and I could read and reread and just stare at his art for hours. My parents would give me other books for birthdays and Christmases, but I’d go out and spend my own money on them when I’d save enough. I would swap books with friends. In school for an assignment where we had to act out a scene from our favorite book I got together with a few friends and we turned one of the bully, Moe, stories into a little skit.
As I got older I could all of a sudden start to appreciate some of the intellectualism and philosophy Watterson would weave into the stories. For the first time I read his introductions to the collections or some of his contemporaries and I developed an appreciation for the toil of the work of being a comic book artist. Even now to think about what it took to produce that level and volume of drawing, inking, coloring AND writing boggles the mind.
I have a pretty good collection of the books now, and when my seven-year-old nephew was visiting with his family and looking for something to do, I gave him Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat. Like the younger version of me, right now he likes the drawings and the more visual gags. But I knew I had helped perpetuate the legacy of Calvin and Hobbes when I went to visit him a few weeks ago and he had his own copy of it. I’m planning on helping him complete the collection by giving him the rest of my books. It’s a wonderful thing to pass along the magic.
Another reader points to a compilation of “25 great Calvin and Hobbes strips”. Browse previous Dish on C&H here.
The Dish 