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| Calvin and Hobbes | |
|---|---|
 The cover of Calvin and Hobbes, the first collection of comic strips, released in April 1987. | |
| Author(s) | Bill Watterson |
| Current status/schedule | Concluded |
| Launch date | November 18, 1985[1] |
| End date | December 31, 1995 |
| Syndicate(s) | Universal Press Syndicate |
| Publisher(s) | Andrews McMeel Publishing |
| Genre(s) | Humor, family life, philosophy, satire |
Calvin and Hobbes is a daily American comic strip created by cartoonist Bill Watterson that was syndicated from November 18, 1985, to December 31, 1995. Commonly described as "the last great newspaper comic",[2][3][4] Calvin and Hobbes has enjoyed broad and enduring popularity, influence, and academic and philosophical interest.
Calvin and Hobbes follows the humorous antics of the title characters: Calvin, a precocious, mischievous, and adventurous six-year-old boy; and his friend Hobbes, a sardonic tiger. Set in the suburban United States of the 1980s and 1990s, the strip depicts Calvin's frequent flights of fancy and friendship with Hobbes. It also examines Calvin's relationships with his long-suffering parents and with his classmates, especially his neighbor Susie Derkins. Hobbes's dual nature is a defining motif for the strip: to Calvin, Hobbes is a living anthropomorphic tiger, while all the other characters seem to see Hobbes as an inanimate stuffed toy, though Watterson has not clarified exactly how Hobbes is perceived by others, or whether he is real or an imaginary friend. Though the series does not frequently mention specific political figures or ongoing events, it does explore broad issues like environmentalism, public education, and philosophical quandaries.[5]
At the height of its popularity, Calvin and Hobbes was featured in over 2,400 newspapers worldwide.[1] In 2010, reruns of the strip appeared in more than 50 countries, and nearly 45 million copies of the Calvin and Hobbes books had been sold worldwide.[1]
History[edit]
Development[edit]
"I thought it was perhaps too 'adult,' too literate. When my then-8-year-old son remarked, 'This is the Doonesbury for kids!' I suspected we had something unusual on our hands."
—Lee Salem, Watterson's editor at Universal, recalling his reaction after seeing Watterson's first submission[1]
Calvin and Hobbes was conceived when Bill Watterson, while working in an advertising job he detested,[6] began devoting his spare time to developing a newspaper comic for potential syndication. He explored various strip ideas but all were rejected by the syndicates. United Feature Syndicate finally responded positively to one strip called The Doghouse, which featured a side character (the main character's little brother) who had a stuffed tiger. United identified these characters as the strongest and encouraged Watterson to develop them as the center of their own strip.[7] Though United Feature ultimately rejected the new strip as lacking in marketing potential, Universal Press Syndicate took it up.[8][9]
Launch and early success (1985–1990)[edit]
The first Calvin and Hobbes strip was published on November 18, 1985[10] in 35 newspapers. The strip quickly became popular. Within a year of syndication, the strip was published in roughly 250 newspapers and proved to have international appeal with translation and wide circulation outside the United States.[11]
Although Calvin and Hobbes underwent continual artistic development and creative innovation over the period of syndication, the earliest strips demonstrated a remarkable consistency with the latest. Watterson introduced all the major characters within the first three weeks and made no changes to the central cast over the strip's 10-year history.
By April 5, 1987, Watterson was featured in an article in the Los Angeles Times.[8] Calvin and Hobbes earned Watterson the Reuben Award from the National Cartoonists Society in the Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year category, first in 1986 and again in 1988. He was nominated another time in 1992. The Society awarded him the Humor Comic Strip Award for 1988.[12] Calvin and Hobbes has also won several more awards.
As his creation grew in popularity, there was strong interest from the syndicate to merchandise the characters and expand into other forms of media. Watterson's contract with the syndicate allowed the characters to be licensed without the creator's consent, as was standard at the time. Nevertheless, Watterson had leverage by threatening to simply walk away from the comic strip.
This dynamic played out in a long and emotionally draining battle between Watterson and his syndicate editors. By 1991, Watterson had achieved his goal of securing a new contract that granted him legal control over his creation and all future licensing arrangements.[13]
Creative control (1991–1995)[edit]
Having achieved his objective of creative control, Watterson's desire for privacy subsequently reasserted itself and he ceased all media interviews, relocated to New Mexico, and largely disappeared from public engagements, refusing to attend the ceremonies of any of the cartooning awards he won.[4] The pressures of the battle over merchandising led to Watterson taking an extended break from May 5, 1991, to February 1, 1992, a move that was virtually unprecedented in the world of syndicated cartoonists.
During Watterson's first sabbatical from the strip, Universal Press Syndicate continued to charge newspapers full price to re-run old Calvin and Hobbes strips. Few editors approved of the move, but the strip was so popular that they had no choice but to continue to run it for fear that competing newspapers might pick it up and draw its fans away.[14] Watterson returned to the strip in 1992 with plans to produce his Sunday strip as an unbreakable half of a newspaper or tabloid page. This made him only the second cartoonist since Garry Trudeau to have sufficient popularity to demand more space and control over the presentation of his work.
Watterson took a second sabbatical from April 3 through December 31, 1994. His return came with an announcement that Calvin and Hobbes would be concluding at the end of 1995. Stating his belief that he had achieved everything that he wanted to within the medium, he announced his intention to work on future projects at a slower pace with fewer artistic compromises.[13]
The final strip ran on Sunday, December 31, 1995, depicting Calvin and Hobbes sledding down a snowy hill after a fresh snowfall with Calvin exclaiming "Let's go exploring!"[15][16][10]
Speaking to NPR in 2005, animation critic Charles Solomon opined that the final strip "left behind a hole in the comics page that no strip has been able to fill."[17]
Sunday formatting[edit]
Syndicated comics were typically published six times a week in black and white, with a Sunday supplement version in a larger, full color format. This larger format version of the strip was constrained by mandatory layout requirements that made it possible for newspaper editors to format the strip for different page sizes and layouts.
Watterson grew increasingly frustrated by the shrinking of the available space for comics in the newspapers and the mandatory panel divisions that restricted his ability to produce better artwork and more creative storytelling. He felt that without space for anything more than simple dialogue or sparse artwork, comics as an art form were becoming dilute, bland, and unoriginal.[18][19]
Watterson longed for the artistic freedom allotted to classic strips such as Little Nemo and Krazy Kat, and in 1989 he gave a sample of what could be accomplished with such liberty in the opening pages of the Sunday strip compilation, The Calvin and Hobbes Lazy Sunday Book—an 8-page previously unpublished Calvin story fully illustrated in watercolor. The same book contained an afterword from the artist himself, reflecting on a time when comic strips were allocated a whole page of the newspaper and every comic was like a "color poster".[20]
Within two years, Watterson was ultimately successful in negotiating a deal that provided him more space and creative freedom. Following his 1991 sabbatical, Universal Press announced that Watterson had decided to sell his Sunday strip as an unbreakable half of a newspaper or tabloid page. Many editors and even a few cartoonists including Bil Keane (The Family Circus) and Bruce Beattie (Snafu) criticized him for what they perceived as arrogance and an unwillingness to abide by the normal practices of the cartoon business.[21] Others, including Bill Amend (Foxtrot), Johnny Hart (BC, Wizard of Id) and Barbara Brandon (Where I'm Coming From) supported him. The American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors even formally requested that Universal reconsider the changes.[22] Watterson's own comments on the matter was that "editors will have to judge for themselves whether or not Calvin and Hobbes deserves the extra space. If they don't think the strip carries its own weight, they don't have to run it." Ultimately only 15 newspapers cancelled the strip in response to the layout changes.[23]
Sabbaticals[edit]
Bill Watterson took two sabbaticals from the daily requirements of producing the strip. The first took place from May 5, 1991, to February 1, 1992, and the second from April 3 through December 31, 1994. These sabbaticals were included in the new contract Watterson managed to negotiate with Universal Features in 1990. The sabbaticals were proposed by the syndicate themselves, who, fearing Watterson's complete burnout, endeavored to get another five years of work from their star artist.[4]
Watterson remains only the third cartoonist with sufficient popularity and stature to receive a sabbatical from their syndicate, the first two being Garry Trudeau (Doonesbury) in 1983 and Gary Larson (The Far Side) in 1989.[23] Typically, cartoonists are expected to produce sufficient strips to cover any period that they may wish to take off. Watterson's lengthy sabbaticals received some mild criticism from his fellow cartoonists including Greg Evans (Luann), and Charles Schulz (Peanuts), one of Watterson's major artistic influences, even called it a "puzzle". Some cartoonists resented the idea that Watterson worked harder than others, while others supported it. At least one newspaper editor noted that the strip was the most popular in the country and stated that he "earned it".[24]
Merchandising[edit]
Despite the popularity of Calvin and Hobbes, the strip remains notable for the almost complete lack of official product merchandising. Watterson held that comic strips should stand on their own as an art form and although he did not start out completely opposed to merchandising in all forms (or even for all comic strips), he did reject an early syndication deal that involved incorporating a more marketable, licensed character into his strip.[9] In spite of being an unproven cartoonist, and having been flown all the way to New York to discuss the proposal, Watterson reflexively resented the idea of "cartooning by committee" and turned it down.
When Calvin and Hobbes was accepted by Universal Syndicate, and began to grow in popularity, Watterson found himself at odds with the syndicate, which urged him to begin merchandising the characters and touring the country to promote the first collections of comic strips. Watterson refused, believing that the integrity of the strip and its artist would be undermined by commercialization, which he saw as a major negative influence in the world of cartoon art,[18] and that licensing his character would only violate the spirit of his work.[25] He gave an example of this in discussing his opposition to a Hobbes plush toy: that if the essence of Hobbes' nature in the strip is that it remain unresolved whether he is a real tiger or a stuffed toy, then creating a real stuffed toy would only destroy the magic. However, having initially signed away control over merchandising in his initial contract with the syndicate,[4] Watterson commenced a lengthy and emotionally draining battle with Universal to gain control over his work. Ultimately Universal did not approve any products against Watterson's wishes, understanding that, unlike other comic strips, it would be nearly impossible to separate the creator from the strip if Watterson chose to walk away.
One estimate places the value of licensing revenue forgone by Watterson at $300–$400 million.[26] Almost no legitimate Calvin and Hobbes merchandise exists.[27] Exceptions produced during the strip's original run include two 16-month calendars (1988–89 and 1989–90), a t-shirt for the Smithsonian Exhibit, Great American Comics: 100 Years of Cartoon Art (1990) and the textbook Teaching with Calvin and Hobbes,[28][29] which has been described as "perhaps the most difficult piece of official Calvin and Hobbes memorabilia to find."[30] In 2010, Watterson did allow his characters to be included in a series of United States Postal Service stamps honoring five classic American comics.[31] Licensed prints of Calvin and Hobbes were made available and have also been included in various academic works.
The strip's immense popularity has led to the appearance of various counterfeit items such as window decals and T-shirts that often feature crude humor, binge drinking and other themes that are not found in Watterson's work.[32] Images from one strip in which Calvin and Hobbes dance to loud music at night were commonly used for copyright violations.[33] After threat of a lawsuit alleging infringement of copyright and trademark, some sticker makers replaced Calvin with a different boy, while other makers made no changes.[34] Watterson wryly commented, "I clearly miscalculated how popular it would be to show Calvin urinating on a Ford logo,"[35] but later added, "long after the strip is forgotten, [they] are my ticket to immortality".[36]
Animation[edit]
Watterson has expressed admiration for animation as an artform. In a 1989 interview in The Comics Journal he described the appeal of being able to do things with a moving image that cannot be done by a simple drawing: the distortion, the exaggeration and the control over the length of time an event is viewed.[37] However, although the visual possibilities of animation appealed to Watterson, the idea of finding a voice for Calvin made him uncomfortable, as did the idea of working with a team of animators.[18] Ultimately, Calvin and Hobbes was never made into an animated series. Watterson later stated in The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book that he liked the fact that his strip was a "low-tech, one-man operation," and that he took great pride in the fact that he drew every line and wrote every word on his own.[38] Calls from major Hollywood figures interested in an adaptation of his work, including Jim Henson, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, were never returned[4] and in a 2013 interview Watterson stated that he had "zero interest" in an animated adaptation as there was really no upside for him in doing so.[36]
Style and influences[edit]
The strip borrows several elements and themes from three major influences: Walt Kelly's Pogo, George Herriman's Krazy Kat and Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts.[39] Schulz and Kelly particularly influenced Watterson's outlook on comics during his formative years.[9]
Notable elements of Watterson's artistic style are his characters' diverse and often exaggerated expressions (particularly those of Calvin), elaborate and bizarre backgrounds for Calvin's flights of imagination, expressions of motion and frequent visual jokes and metaphors. In the later years of the strip, with more panel space available for his use, Watterson experimented more freely with different panel layouts, art styles, stories without dialogue and greater use of white space. He also experimented with his tools, once inking a strip with a stick from his yard in order to achieve a particular look.[40] He also makes a point of not showing certain things explicitly: the "Noodle Incident" and the children's book Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie are left to the reader's imagination, where Watterson was sure they would be "more outrageous" than he could portray.[41]
Production and technique[edit]
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Watterson's technique started with minimalist pencil sketches drawn with a light pencil (though the larger Sunday strips often required more elaborate work) on a piece of Bristol board, with his brand of choice being Strathmore because he felt it held the drawings better on the page as opposed to the cheaper brands (Watterson said he initially used any cheap pad of Bristol board his local supply store had but switched to Strathmore after he found himself growing more and more displeased with the results). He would then use a small sable brush and India ink to fill in the rest of the drawing, saying that he did not want to simply trace over his penciling and thus make the inking more spontaneous. He lettered dialogue with a Rapidograph fountain pen, and he used a crowquill pen for odds and ends.[42] Mistakes were covered with various forms of correction fluid, including the type used on typewriters. Watterson was careful in his use of color, often spending a great deal of time in choosing the right colors to employ for the weekly Sunday strip; his technique was to cut the color tabs the syndicate sent him into individual squares, lay out the colors, and then paint a watercolor approximation of the strip on tracing paper over the Bristol board and then mark the strip accordingly before sending it on.[43] When Calvin and Hobbes began there were 64 colors available for the Sunday strips. For the later Sunday strips Watterson had 125 colors as well as the ability to fade the colors into each other.[42]
Main characters[edit]
Calvin[edit]
Calvin, named after the 16th-century theologian John Calvin, is a six-year-old boy with spiky blond hair and a distinctive red-and-black striped shirt, black pants and sneakers.[39] Despite his poor grades in school, Calvin demonstrates his intelligence through a sophisticated vocabulary, philosophical mind and creative/artistic talent. Watterson described Calvin as having "not much of a filter between his brain and his mouth", a "little too intelligent for his age", lacking in restraint and not yet having the experience to "know the things that you shouldn't do."[44] The comic strip largely revolves around Calvin's inner world and his largely antagonistic experiences with those outside of it (fellow students, authority figures and his parents). Watterson said that Calvin was not based on his own childhood, stating that he (Watterson) was "a quiet obedient kid (...) almost Calvin's opposite".[45]
Hobbes[edit]
From Calvin's point of view, Hobbes is an anthropomorphic tiger much larger than Calvin and full of independent attitudes and ideas. When a scene includes any other human, Hobbes appears as a stuffed animal, usually seated at an off-kilter angle with a blank facial expression. The true nature of the character is never resolved, instead as Watterson describes, a 'grown-up' version of reality is juxtaposed against Calvin's, with the reader left to "decide which is truer".[13] Hobbes is based on a cat Watterson owned, a grey tabby named Sprite. Sprite inspired the length of Hobbes's body as well as his personality. Although Hobbes's humor stems from acting like a human, Watterson maintained Sprite's feline attitude.[46]
Hobbes is named after 17th-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who held what Watterson describes as "a dim view of human nature."[47] He typically exhibits a greater understanding of consequences than Calvin, but rarely intervenes in Calvin's activities beyond a few oblique warnings. He often likes to sneak up and pounce on Calvin, especially at the front door when Calvin is returning home from school. The friendship between the two characters provides the core dynamic of the strip.
Calvin's parents[edit]
Calvin's mother and father are typical middle-class parents who are relatively down to earth and whose sensible attitudes serve as a foil for Calvin's outlandish behavior. Calvin's father is a patent attorney (like Watterson's own father),[47] while his mother is a stay-at-home mom. Both parents are unnamed throughout the entire strip, as Watterson insists, "As far as the strip is concerned, they are important only as Calvin's mom and dad." Watterson modelled Calvin's father as a satire of his own father, particularly in the strips where Calvin's father lectures Calvin on the benefits of "building character".[48]
Watterson recounts that some fans are angered by the sometimes sardonic way that Calvin's parents respond to him.[49] In response, Watterson defends what Calvin's parents do, remarking that in the case of parenting a kid like Calvin, "I think they do a better job than I would." Calvin's father is overly concerned with "character building" activities in a number of strips, either in the things he makes Calvin do or in the austere eccentricities of his own lifestyle.[50]
Susie Derkins[edit]
Susie Derkins, who first appears early in the strip and is the only important character with both a first and last name, lives on Calvin's street and is one of his classmates. Her last name apparently derives from the pet beagle owned by Watterson's wife's family.[51]
Susie is studious and polite (though she can be aggressive if sufficiently provoked), and she likes to play house or host tea parties with her stuffed animals. She also plays imaginary games with Calvin in which she acts as a high-powered lawyer or politician and wants Calvin to pretend to be her househusband. Though both of them are typically loath to admit it, Calvin and Susie exhibit many common traits and inclinations. For example, the reader occasionally sees Susie with a stuffed rabbit named "Mr. Bun." Much like Calvin, Susie has a mischievous (and sometimes aggressive) streak as well, which the reader witnesses whenever she subverts Calvin's attempts to cheat on school tests by feeding him incorrect answers, or whenever she fights back after Calvin attacks her with snowballs or water balloons.
Hobbes often openly expresses romantic feelings for Susie, to Calvin's disgust. In contrast, Calvin started a club (of which he and Hobbes are the only members) that he calls G.R.O.S.S. (Get Rid Of Slimy GirlS) and, while holding "meetings" in Calvin's tree house or in the "box of secrecy" in Calvin's room, they usually come up with some plot against Susie. In one instance, Calvin steals one of Susie's dolls and holds it for ransom, only to have Susie retaliate by nabbing Hobbes. Watterson admits that Calvin and Susie have a nascent crush on each other and that Susie is a reference to the type of woman whom Watterson himself found attractive and eventually married.[47]
Susie features as a main character in two of the five storylines that appear in Teaching with Calvin and Hobbes.[28]
Secondary characters[edit]
Calvin also interacts with a handful of secondary characters. Several of these, including Rosalyn, his babysitter; Miss Wormwood, his teacher; and Moe, the school bully, recur regularly through the duration of the strip.
Recurring elements and themes[edit]
Art and academia[edit]
Watterson used the strip to poke fun at the art world, principally through Calvin's unconventional creations of snowmen but also through other expressions of childhood art. When Miss Wormwood complains that he is wasting class time drawing impossible things (a Stegosaurus in a rocket ship, for example), Calvin proclaims himself "on the cutting edge of the avant-garde."[52][53][54] He begins exploring the medium of snow when a warm day melts his snowman. His next sculpture "speaks to the horror of our own mortality, inviting the viewer to contemplate the evanescence of life."[55] In later strips, Calvin's creative instincts diversify to include sidewalk drawings (or, as he terms them, examples of "suburban postmodernism").[56]
Watterson also lampooned the academic world. In one example, Calvin carefully crafts an "artist's statement", claiming that such essays convey more messages than artworks themselves ever do (Hobbes blandly notes, "You misspelled Weltanschauung").[57][58] He indulges in what Watterson calls "pop psychobabble" to justify his destructive rampages and shift blame to his parents, citing "toxic codependency."[59] In one instance, he pens a book report based on the theory that the purpose of academic writing is to "inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning and inhibit clarity," entitled The Dynamics of Interbeing and Monological Imperatives in Dick and Jane: A Study in Psychic Transrelational Gender Modes. Displaying his creation to Hobbes, he remarks, "Academia, here I come!"[60] Watterson explains that he adapted this jargon (and similar examples from several other strips) from an actual book of art criticism.[47]
Overall, Watterson's satirical essays serve to attack both sides, criticizing both the commercial mainstream and the artists who are supposed to be "outside" it. The strip on Sunday, June 21, 1992, criticized the naming of the Big Bang theory as not evocative of the wonders behind it and coined the term "Horrendous Space Kablooie",[