Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for September 03, 2009

He nailed you, Hobbes.

I know that I do.

Hobbes can sleep until he’s fed, but he can roam if he wants.

Poor Hobbes, doesn’t even know he’ll be left there next strip

spoilerman, You’re living up to your name, aren’t you? :o)

nahhh…Hpbbes will helps himself whenever he feels like the Tuna can? annd Calvin’s comic books? lol

Has Calvin forgotten how Hobbes greets him at the door when he comes home after school, and how they go sledding down the hill at breakneck speed, and the recent Calvinball they ‘played’, etc.?

Hobbes is a feline eating and sleeping is what they’re supposed to do - at least that’s what my cats tell me.

What does Hobbes eat?

Congrats Spoilerman! You once again prove that you own a C&H book or two and that you are able to read the pictures in them. Your Mumma must be proud.

Hobbes, I’m with you. Most zoos are little more than prisons for animals.

Hobbes CHOOSES to do nothing but eat and sleep, but if he HAD to it would be different.

It’s all a matter of choice

I wouldn’t mind living in the zoo, sleep and eat and sleap agein

Poor Hobbes. We know what you mean.

No good time or early release , inhuman .

I agree with Hobbes, it’s a matter of choice. In his case, he chooses to sleep till he eats, but for the zoo animals, (except maybe the monkeys who get to do ‘gross’ things and get away with it) they have no freedom to choose their lifestyle.

It’s a good thing that Calvin is the only one who can see ‘Hobbes as he really is’ (wink). Otherwise, Hobbes would be captured and confined as the other animals are.

I just tagged this and read ahead. According to what I just read Calvin doesn’t leave Hobbes behind tomorrow, he does something I did when I was 10 and still gets laughed about in my family. It didn’t happen at the zoo though, it happened at the airport! Oh I could have had such an adventure if the ‘other one’ hadn’t realized she had one too many!

In the fourth panel: apparently, Hobbes is not amused with Calvin’s remarks.

Zoos are cruel– and we humans are always saying, “It’s so cute–I want one for a pet!”, such an arrogant species we are!

It’s Calvin’s life also, contained and nothing to do.

I’ve lived in several zoos. Some people call them apartments. Some of us have escaped.

Good to see like minds on the zoo issue. Of course there are some good animal people who actually foster animal conservancy & husbandry, on both preserves & in natural habitats. But here in the 21st Century, things like domestic zoos & circuses need to be abolished.

I wish I could just sleep until I was fed. I’d probably get bored, but at least I would be able to get some R&R.

Woodeye - Hobbes eats tunafish sandwichs, that’s how Calvin catches him in the first strip of the comic.

Why do I get this sneaking suspicion that Calvin is going to try to free all the animals…starting with the gators.

Please no spoilers. The next time spoilerman or anyone else gives a spoiler I will flag them. Some of us want to be kept in suspense!

Modern zoos are a little better. They give animals an outdoor environment and room to roam in something roughly approximating their natural habitat. They’re confined by fences rather than cages. Our local zoo is like that. I do feel sorry for some animals, like primates and predators, who are very intelligent and probably frustrated. We confine these few so that humans can be educated and be moved to make a better environment for the many. I know that doesn’t work well, but seeing my kids’ reaction to the animals and hearing their questions makes me glad I brought them. It’s not a perfect world, by any means.

People are quick to squawk about the “inhumanity of putting animals in cages” while they swig from their plastic water bottles and then throw them out the windows of their Humvees. People better start appreciating zoos because at the rate humankind is destroying the habitat, zoos may soon be the only islands of genetic diversity left…

Suuuurre, release all the animals so they might roam the streets, raid the dumpsters of their organics and poop on the sidewalks and streets like back in the ‘good old days’…like many them still do in India. Go for it Calvin!

hobbs just doesn’t sleep all day, he has had many adventures with calvin as we all know.

Animals in zoos have “enclosures”. Humans at work have “cubicles”.

Not sure which is worse. Both make existence boring and pointless, but at least the animals in the zoo can make whoopie in their enclosures.

We’re already at the point where zoos are the only places some animals exist. The Amur leopard is almost extinct in the wild, but has a thriving population at various facilities around the world. The California Condor wouldn’t exist at all unless the San Diego Zoo had found a way to reintroduce them to the wild. While some zoos are a disgrace, most modern facilities provide habitat (not just cages) for their animals, plus vet care, regular feeding and privacy enclosures so they can get away from the customers when they feel threatened.

I’m with you, Macushlalondra! I don’t like knowing in advance what’s going to happen! I like to be a part of the story as it unfolds every day.

Please, people … keep your spoiler information to yourself and leave the rest of us alone to enjoy Bill Watterson’s wonderfully imaginative “Calvin and Hobbes” as it’s brought to life (once again!) each and every day right here for us!!!!!

Thanks!!!!!!!!!!

I look forward to the morning surprise of the new comic strip. Spoiler must have been a bottle fed baby!

Yeah, no spoilers even if you do own a book or two, or the series. Myself, I like seeing them over and over again. Yukoner, interesting avatar … LOL. I’ve seen her series of sketches too.

I agree, no spoilers, however, zoos educate people, is that so wrong?

I wasn’t trying to spoil anything. I just voiced my suspicions on what I thought was going to happen. I’ve never been right yet.

Hobbes you do lots of stuff besides eating and sleeping Adventures with your buddy Calvin keeps me reading every morning

I too will join the spoiler revolution and flag spoilers.

ds133 you are excused because I asked, and the info didn’t spoil an upcoming strip. Thank You.

I’ve seen some really bad zoos, but I’ve also been in a couple that I wouldn’t mind living in! :-)

Hobbes, being a tiger, and tigers being cats, reminded me of one of mr favorite quotations: ” Thousands of years ago cats were worshipped as Gods. Cats have never forgotten this.” – unknown,

As for zoos and wild animals, I like this quote from author Jonathan Swift: There are few wild beasts more to be dreaded than a talking man [or woman] with nothing to say.” For proof of this, just read through the comments on this site for a few days. Or even a single day.

BC13 it wasn’t you…… it was come clown calling himself spoilerman who decided to put up what he read in one of the books his mommy bought him

There are several very good comments here, excellent even…Snagglepuss. …kudos to whom the shoe fits. Sometimes the comic itself doesn’t lend itself to much comment, but there are issues related to the ‘comic’, or even a subject someone brings up as a side issue which can be discussed profitably.

Very early this morning I mentioned the adventures that Calvin and Hobbes have had over the years, and two or three others since then have commented in the same vein. However, maybe Calvin was using hyperbole, and being a bit facetious as well. It appears that Hobbes missed the ‘barb’ and is giving Calvin credit for understanding the point that Hobbes was making in his comments about the boring and banal existence of these caged and confined zoo animals.

Did they bring tuna sandwiches? Hobbes looks like he could eat one right about now…

I remember the one where Calvin says to Hobbes “Mom wants to know if we want to go to the zoo” and Hobbes says “Can we tour a prison afterwards?” I thought that was funny.

“No thanks”

They got better medical care!!!!!!!!

BURN!

JanCinVV You said what I was thinking as I was reading the comments. Poaching seems to be on the rise in parts of Africa again, the Saharan elephants are dying from drought, gorillas and chimps in Central Africa were/are dying not only from humans, but also Ebola, surprisingly. The myth of the noble animal roaming free is just that nowadays, a myth. The San Diego zoo (a world-famous zoo and rightly so) and places like it may be the only places our children’s children will ever see a “wild” animal. There are too many of us, people, and too many are hungry, and too many are greedy.

Edit: I don’t mean to just pick on Africa - here in California, we have poachers being picked up time after time poaching abalone, deer, ducks, salmon, you name it.

It’s not quite a myth even yet, but it’s close enough. Few indeed are the places where wild animals and man live apart, and that’s only because man has set aside areas where the animals can roam.

I read some time ago that there used to be an American cheetah that preyed upon the American pronghorn. The suggestion was made that cheetahs could be introduced from Africa to help the cheetahs (and even the pronghorn) survive. That would certainly make things more interesting on the American Great Plains.

The quotation I like best about cats (it has been translated from the Bengali into English) comes from Rabindranath Tagore, an author who was the first Bengali to win the Nobel Prize for literature (in 1913):

“God made the cat so that Man could have the pleasure of petting a tiger.”

Yes?

@Rakkav, that would make things more interesting for at least two kinds of animals living on the Great Plains - the pronghorns and the humans. Unless we could breed cheetahs who were not interested in humans in any way?

i love calvin and hobbes

Aye, RinaFarina, there’s the rub. But if you think that’s bad, wait until you hear the proposal to transplant much of the rest of the Serengeti with them! (Not that it seems to be going much of anywhere; I can’t even remember where I saw it…)

It’s been a while since North America has had elephants, lions and such. Yessirree, most interesting indeed.

I didn’t mean you BC13, you were guessing and you may or may not be correct. Cymbol told it but didn’t tell it, just said what happens happened when he or she was 10, and made it more interesting, since now we can guess what that was. That’s not the same as a spoiler.