Calvin & Hobbes Appreciation Thread

[Powder]

So, certainly I'm not the only fan here, right? I've been a fan of the comic strip for as long as I can remember. Much like the TMNT, it was (& at times continues to be) something that eased my mind. I was usually very sick (up until my mid/late teens) with a case of Irritable Bowel Syndrome often times so severe I could not leave my home, & my condition kept me in the bathroom for extensive periods of time. Of course when that's what you're dealing with, you've got to take your mind off of it as best you can. My gameboy came in handy, but nothing brought me more joy than the collected volumes of Calvin & Hobbes that I owned. My mom picked up one or two for me figuring it would be something I'd enjoy, and given my situation & fancy for the strips, over time I owned them all. Those comics were the only thing that really did the trick. They were funny, heartwarming, relatable (being a kid & all), wonderfully illustrated, frequently philosophical & they brought you into many different places as Calvin's imagination held no limits.

Generally speaking, newspaper funnies don't have a time-line. You can read them in any order, and not miss anything as they were simple gags that played out between three to six panels. Though that was the case with C&H on occasion, usually there was a storyline to follow with each new day that sometimes spanned over several weeks. So reading them in collected volumes was much like reading a standard comic book, which to my knowledge is uncommon for strips (though not unheard of). Stories with pictures, gotta love 'em.

I was a Calvin as a kid, so I felt right at home reading it. I latched on to my stuffed animals, giving them personalities & having imaginary adventures & conversations with them, the breadth of my imagination was unmatched, I was an only child terror with a big heart who drove his parents crazy, anything gross was right up my alley, & much like Calvin I didn't have many real friends. It felt like the book was made just for me. Being someone who didn't get out all too frequently and didn't get to enjoy the standard TV pilot childhood, it was wonderful to still feel on par with another kid, even if he was made of ink. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to look like orphan Annie or anything, but when you're a little kid it's much harder to deal with a crummy deck than it is as an adult. You feel like you're the only one in that position, you have the whole "why me" mentality 'cause you don't understand that "sh*t happens". Calvin & Hobbes always cheered me up.

Anyways, who else loves this strip?! Things that stick out the most for me are Calvin's dinosaur daydreams (that have an uncanny resemblance to Jim Lawson's "Paleo", now that I think of it!), the time he made a "transmogrifier" & turned himself & Hobbes into various critters, when clones of Calvin were wreaking havoc in the neighborhood, & the many train-wreck vacations their family had.