Calvin and Hobbes has been back in the Boston Globe ever since the demise of Garfield.
My mixed feelings about it at the time has taken a dive towards the
negative, not because the strips are no good, but because the syndicate
that’s now recycling old strips seem to be doing so with little respect
for the material. For example, over the past few weeks the Sunday
strips have had Calvin suicide-sledding, and yesterday’s early snow notwithstanding, it’s still autumn!
Perhaps the worst example of this lack of respect came today. Any fan of the comic would immediately recognize it as the very last Calvin & Hobbes ever,
published December 31, 1995. Why October 30, 2005 (2 months shy of a
10th anniversary!) seemed a fitting day to rerun this particular strip
is entirely mysterious to me…
… except for the entirely personal fact, for our 6th (dating)
anniversary, Rachel (that’s Ms. Anderkoo if you’re nasty) gave me The Complete Calvin and Hobbes
3-volume, 25 lb collection. Somehow she lugged that thing home from
work, where she’d had Amazon ship it. I was none-too-subtle about
wanting it (in fact, I distinctly remember sending an email to her with
the message “This would be a nice gift”), but it was sweet all the same.
The best part of the collection for me is the all-new introduction
written by Watterson himself. Since he’s such a recluse, any insight
into his thinking is a rare gift. He’s still rather worked up about his
fight for artistic integrity of his strip:
Even though I finally got my way, teh whole mess is
depressing to recall, even all these years later. The fight was
personally traumatic. For several years it poisoned what had been a
happy relationship with my syndicate, and in my disillusionment and
disgust at being pushed to the wall, I lost the conviction that I
wanted to spend my life cartooning. Both sides paid a heavy price for
this battle.
Perhaps
I speak as one who now owns every Calvin and Hobbes strip ever printed,
but I do feel publication of the strip in today’s papers doesn’t show
it in its best light. Some of the material is dated — Watterson’s
nemesis is obviously the television, but C&H ended just before the
dot-com explosion and mobile phones, and a comic strip that portrays a
modern kid without referencing mobile phones or the internet seem
quaint. Most of the strips remain delightful, but if the Globe has to
resurrect old strips to fill up space, why not go all the way back to
Little Nemo in Slumberland or some of the other classics? Or why not
give some fresh blood a chance?
that’s the sad fact about comic strips. they date faster than any other media. humor and illustrative style are usually best in context of time. although watterson’s strip ages better than most.
true enough, though i think my comment was focusing in particular on the strips that were devoted to contemporary concerns like television or current events. “Little Nemo” feels fresh today despite some changes of idiom and dress because its topics were pure fantasy. Then again, strips like “The Family Circus” will never be contemporary even if they are still being drawn (to use the word generously) today because their creators have been asleep since 1963. Similarly, strips that attempt to be “timeless” often fail because they trade in cheap universals like political cynicism.
Then again, going back to what you say about the medium itself — comics began as a form of political satire, so the ones that stay closest to their roots are the ones most likely to be dated (though they have great historical value).
Wow, vintage. I remember when Calvin & Hobbes use to be so popular (back when I was in middle school), and it has still remained strong to this very day (almost the end of 2008)!
It ended too soon, as all great things do. 🙁