The first Calvin & Hobbes strip

First published on November the 18th 1985 in the Daily. We discover Calvin and Hobbes, and Hobbes' love for tuna fish.

Calvin

The most funny thing of the comics is Calvin's character. He is cynical, weird, greed...

Megalomania

(from The Essential Calvin and Hobbes)

Selfishness

(from The Essential Calvin and Hobbes)

Cupidity

(from Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons)

Sexism

(from The Days are just packed)

Morbidity

(from The Essential Calvin and Hobbes)

Silly things

(from The Essential Calvin and Hobbes)

Weirdness

(from The Essential Calvin and Hobbes)

So...

(from The Essential Calvin and Hobbes)

"I'm home !"

When Calvin arrives from school... Hobbes is always waiting for him...

Calvin at School

Calvin and school... Calvin hates school, as much as disciplin. It's boring... His teacher, Miss Wormwood is waiting for retirement because of Calvin !

Show and Tell

Calvin uses the show and tell at school to show aliens, to make vulgar words contests... and sometimes a few philosophy...

Homeworks

Calvin hates scholl... and homeworks. The most difficult thing is to find how not to do them. Sometimes Hobbes helps him... But most of the time he doesn't do them

Lunch

Calvin grings his lunch at school... but it's always weird or disgusting :

Moe

Moe is a six-year-old boy, but his big, tall, strong, stupid... He likes to beat hthe little, during gym class for example, to steal their money. Calvin is used to laughing at Moe... but he pays often for that...

Baths

Calvin, like many kids, hates baths... and tries not to take one... but if he does, his mother has to pay for this...

Meals at home

Calvin, like many kids, doesm't like his mother's cooking...

Les explications de son père

When Calvin asks his father a question, he always give a crazy answer...

"Run for Dad" polls

Calvin considers that "Dad" is an elected post. Therefore Calvin often makes polls among the six-year-old in the house and presents the polls to his father, gives him advises...

The monsters under the bed

Calvin like almost all the other children, fears for monsters under his bed... There's even a C&H called Something under the bed is drooling (included in The Essential Calvin and Hobbes).

Les lettres à Santa

Just before Christmas, Calvin has to write a letter to Santa Claus to ask him a lot of loot... but the problem is that he didn't act very good during the year. Nevertheless he tries to pledge in his favour...

Inventions

Calvin, as the genius kid he pretends to be, often invent very sophisticated machines like the transmogrifier , thee cerebral enhance-o-tron, le duplicator, the ethicator...

The most important of these is probably the transmogriefer (which exists also in handable version). Thus here is the first strip in which it appears :

The last Calvin and Hobbes strip

It has been published in the Washington Post on December the 31st 1995. It's sad to say it, but Watterson retired... But the last strip is full of optimism and let a possibility to restart the cartoon...

Calvin and Hobbes is a comic strip written and illustrated by Bill Watterson, following the humorous antics of Calvin, an imaginative six-year old boy, and Hobbes, his energetic and sardonic—albeit stuffed—tiger. (The pair are named after John Calvin, a 16th century French Reformation theologian, and Thomas Hobbes, a 17th century English political philosopher. The strip was syndicated daily from November 18, 1985 to December 31, 1995. At its height, Calvin and Hobbes was carried by over 2,400 newspapers worldwide. To date, more than 30 million copies of the 18 Calvin and Hobbes books have been printed, and popular culture is still replete with references to the strip.

The strip is vaguely set in the contemporary Midwestern United States, on the outskirts of suburbia, a location probably inspired by Watterson's home town of Chagrin Falls, Ohio. Calvin and Hobbes appear in most of the strips, while very few focus on other members of Calvin's family. The broad themes of the strip deal with Calvin's flights of fantasy, his friendship with Hobbes, his misadventures, his views on a diverse range of political and cultural issues and his relationships and interactions with his parents, classmates, educators, and other members of society. The dual nature of Hobbes is also a recurring motif. Calvin sees Hobbes one way (alive), while other characters see him as something else (a stuffed animal).

Even though the series does not mention specific political figures like political strips such as Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury, it does examine broad issues like environmentalism and the flaws of opinion polls. A number of cartoons feature Calvin announcing the results of "polls of household six-year-olds" to his father, treating his father's position as though it were an elected political office.

Because of Watterson's strong anti-merchandising sentimentsand his reluctance to return to the spotlight, almost no legitimate Calvin and Hobbes merchandise exists outside of the book collections. Some officially approved items were created for marketing purposes and are now sought by collectors. Two notable exceptions to the licensing embargo were the publication of two 16-month wall calendars and the textbook Teaching with Calvin and Hobbes. However, the strip's immense popularity has led to the appearance of various "bootleg" items, including T-shirts, keychains, bumper stickers, and window decals, often including obscene language or references wholly uncharacteristic of the whimsical spirit of Watterson's work.

Please take note that I am NOT the creator of Calvin and Hobbes but merely a fan of the comic. All Calvin and Hobbes related images are Copyright (c) Bill Watterson and the United Syndicate Press. All info and pictures should be seen only as an encouragement to buy C&H books.