When I was little the very first thing to truly get me invested in reading was Calvin and Hobbes. In fact, my investment with this comic strip is to the point where I think of both characters as old freinds rather than any fictional character.

In many ways, the comic could be the single defining literature of my childhood. I own the vast majority of the collections that were released, and the crown jewel of my collection is the thick three release hardback “Master Collection” that contains every single comic ever penned during its syndication from November 18, 1985 to December 31, 1995. Countless hours have been spent in bed pouring over this newspaper strip. All of them were worth it.

Calvin and Hobbes is the brainchild of the now legendary comic artist Bill Watterson. Bill had experimented in political cartoons before Calvin, but Calvin and Hobbes was what made him famous.

I have intense respect for Bill Waterson as a man of morals and character. He is a firm believer in maintaining creative integrity within his brand. In fact, the only reason Calvin and Hobbes came to a close was commercialism. Bill had gotten to a point where the strip was so famous that if he was going to be forced to commercialize it if the comic continued. A great example of this commercialization is Dilbert, Peanuts, and Garfield. They all were respectable comics in their time but now can be found on everything from calendars, mugs, and TV ads. Bill believed that when you commercialize you “Sell Out” and your brand losses integrity.

He never wanted his comic to become merely a tool for marketers to make money, so rather than “sell out.” He just stopped writing. To this day he still maintains full creative control over his content. This means that every time you see a Calvin and Hobbes bumper sticker of Calvin peeing on a logo, it is used without permission and the company making it could receive legal action. Watterson is the only person I know of that killed his product, over the intrinsic value it contains, in the face of significant personal financial gain.

For this reason, I have immense personal respect for Watterson and his work continues to live on in the hearts and minds of its readers, like me!

As far as the actual work itself is concerned. It goes without saying, the comic is some funny stuff. Calvin is a rambunctious 6-year-old with an intense vocabulary and an unending desire to explore, hit girls with water balloons, and spend time with his best friend and stuffed tiger, Hobbes.

What I think Calvin and Hobbes so timeless, is its ability to take someone back to their childhood regardless of your current age. Calvin is the perfect embodiment of just what a crazy kid I was and in some ways I think my childhood lives on inside of this comic too.

I would recommend this comic to literally anyone who is fluent in English and honestly, even to those who aren’t literate with English. Like I said before, this comic got me into reading, and for many strips, the pictures tell a far more humous story than the text ever would. So regardless of if you are literate, or if you like comics or not, do yourself a favor and pick up one of these collections. In fact, if you are in RCL and reading this come up to me after class one day and I will let you borrow one of mine for free. (I have extras, it’s not a problem in the slightest.)