Having previously paid my respects to my other favorite comic strip, I wish now to do the same for Calvin & Hobbes. I am moved to do this by my discovery (via Incoming Signals) of an enthusiastic web page called, with simplicity and accuracy, "25 Great Calvin & Hobbes Strips." You probably already know the strip, and if you don't an introduction is only a click away, so I won't say anything other than that I desperately wish Bill Watterson would start doing it again. The "25 Great Strips" page is wildly enthusiastic (and rather insulting to other comics), but its excesses are those of love and therefore forgivable. And it includes the one with the punch line "You know what's the rage this year? ...Hats." So I can't resist posting it.
But you'd better go there fairly soon, because it could well go the way of "Calvin and Hobbes at Martijn's." Copyright is a harsh mistress.
Posted by languagehat at September 20, 2004 02:34 PMI remember... a friend of mine at school had a complete set of the collected Calvin and Hobbes strips, which I borrowed. If I recall correctly, he also an enlarged photocopy of the last panel of the fourth strip on that page stuck up in his dorm, with the words "science fiction story" replaced by "Institutio christianae religionis". (He was studying mediaeval history at the time.)
Posted by: Tim May at September 20, 2004 05:45 PMI don't know if Mrs. Hat reads these comments, but I know what Mr. Hat would like for his birthday next year...
Posted by: Kerim Friedman at September 20, 2004 06:54 PMI miss C&H as much as you do, but I really admire Watterson for quitting. He learned from Charles Schultz's (Peanuts) fate. So did Gary Larson, though not quite soon enough. Matt Groening is on this ice, though he now has a whole staff of writers.
Every cartoonist should have a Schulz memento mori on his desk.
Posted by: Zizka at September 20, 2004 07:41 PMYeah, I know, and that's what I keep telling myself. How awful if he went downhill! But maybe after a sabbatical, like Trudeau, he'd come back refreshed...
Posted by: language hat at September 20, 2004 08:15 PMwhat a great way to start my day. thanks!
Posted by: etaoin at September 21, 2004 08:36 AM"On thin ice", though "on this ice" sounds sort of mysteriously evocative.
"I'm not sure he really wants to be on this ice right now. He's in danger of suffering a real hat-cleaning".
Posted by: Zizka at September 21, 2004 09:53 AMSomewhere in unpacked boxes (recent move) I have some examples of Calvin and Hobbes translated into Polish and Hungarian.
I bought the Polish version (both are included in comics anthologies) about 10 years ago and my Polish wasn't probably up to judging the quality (and my Hungarian still isn't) but it would be interesting to see if it survives at all (and if so, how ...)
Posted by: Michael Farris at September 21, 2004 12:28 PMVerbing...
I couldn't resist bringing to your attention my very favourite Calvin strip... http://aoife dot allegracom dot ca/images/verbing_sm.jpg
Eve
(for some reason I cannot post my link directly; I don't think the server accepts my domain so you'll have to copy-paste to see it)
Posted by: Eve Léonard at September 23, 2004 06:42 PMAh yes, "verbing weirds language"! Truly a classic. But dammit, I can't post the direct link either; for some reason it won't accept allegracom, even though it's not on my MT Blacklist. So copy and past Eve's URL and change the "dot"s to dots, folks -- it's worth the effort.
Posted by: language hat at September 23, 2004 09:28 PMmt-blacklist - a great comment-spam-filter
Posted by: Tim at September 28, 2004 06:16 AMThe ultimate in chutzpah: a spam message that uses its text space to recomment MT-Blacklist! I'll delete the travel-ad URL when I have time, but I'll leave the message itself, since it's a useful reminder to others to install the blacklist.
Posted by: language hat at September 28, 2004 07:42 AM