Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for March 25, 2010

This is gonna be good…

Thanks ALL for your good wishes yesterday.

Easy Evening ! Great Hopes !

One of the few times I’ve seen Hobbes looking evil.

Be afraid.

Be VERY afraid!!!!

Calvin strikes back!

Oh my, I’m on the edge of my seat!

Now it’s your turn, Calvin!

Hi, Marg & ML.

Will she flunk?

how naive to think its gonna be an easy evening!! Mom should know better.

Hello everyone.

Yes, master, says Hobbes as the evil pair plot their plan.

Hobbes is a little out of character. Isn’t he normally the placid observer?

From what I remember of Rosalyn, he may wish he hadn’t started plotting.

Crouching Tiger Pouncing Calvin…

Parethed: perfect! You get the gold star for this thread!

“ENFPs hate bureaucracy, both in principle and in practice; they will always make a point of launching one of their crusades against some aspect of it.” In this case, against babysitting…

http://typelogic.com/enfp.html

(This strip gives the name to the book Calvin and Hobbes: Revenge of the Baby Sat. Or as one could subtitle it, In which our heroes discover that even when you win, you lose.)

Hello everybody, I love all your comments! It makes “Calvin and Hobbes” even more funny. But can you help me? What is “baby sat”? The online-dictionary only mentions “sit, sat, sat”, but that makes no sense. (I’m from Germany.) Thanks!

Tonight, tonight….Westside Story!

Tineli; you’re seeing English at one of it’s confusing levels. Rosalyn is the baby sitter, she’s come to baby sit. Since Calvin is the one she’s taking care of, he’s the child being baby sat. He’s referring to himself in the last panel.

Seeing that look on Calvin’s face is one thing, but seeing Hobbes’ expression is quite another. I think we’re in for a treat!

Tineli babysit is the verb. means to look after a child for the parents while they are away. baby sat is past tense of the verb or, in this instance, those children whom the baby sitter is taking care of.

Nothin’ a little duct tape and velcro won’t fix.

@ Tineli

Strictly speaking you wouldn’t use the term ‘baby-sat’. But it’s used here because it’s funny because it implies someone sitting on Calvin, holding him down. I think that it was actually Calvin and Hobbes that popularised the term ‘baby-sat’.

Give it up, Calvin, Rosie is MORE than a match for you and Hobbs!

Poor Calvin. Poor Rosie. Lucky Hobbes!

There is a whole volume of Calvin called “Revenge of the baby sat.”

You know something is wrong when Hobbes, the suave Hobbes, who has been known to surrender to every female he comes in contact with (specially Susie Derkins), is plotting against one.

I need history on Hobbes. I thought he was Calvin’s alter ego. If true, then he would reflect the “good” side of Calvin. Now it looks like Calvin is completely going over to the Dark Side. May the Force be with you, Rosalyn!

Get the duct tape Rosalyn.

The dialogue in the last frame was entirely redundant – their expressions provided everything necessary.

Even Hobbes has that evil look about him. Love it!

Thanks to cymbol, yyyguy & Andrew C! The German language imported the word “babysitter”, so this part is easy. But especially imaging Rosalyn to sit on Calvin - that’s really funny!

My Idol is back!!!!!!! Go Ros!!!!!!!!!

(FROM YESTERDAY’S STRIP) imbaldeagle said:

zev.farkas - You can peek ahead? What, like Sheriff Mordecai?

I meant peeking ahead by looking at the books (plus these are repeats, so they may be in the gocomics archives).

Pardon my lack of erudition, but who’s Sheriff Mordecai?

Thanks :)

Oh boy .. is Rosalyn in some real trouble ..

Oh something tells me calvins brain is on overdrive. This going to be good.

Classic.

Two diabolical minds collude.

Yes, and I’m sure Calvin much prefers ‘collude’ to collide, as when Hobbes greets Calvin after school.

It’s been said, but must say it again. The expressions in the last panel are priceless!

Ooh, this will be goood! he he he he…

…and I still don’t want any of you babysitting my kids…

duct tape? sheesh….

:)

@zev.farkas - Sheriff Mordecai posts on the Luann site of comics.com. He’s in the business of transferring, or working on several comic strips. I don’t know the details.

He occasionally hints at what’s to come, in a cryptic way. So it’s kind of a tease, but real.

Thanks for the heads up - that these are reruns - shows that I’m not real familiar with C&H, even though I’m old enough. Our newspapers didn’t/don’t carry the strip. And I’m fairly new to online comics. Love it!

Two bad boys!

I wonder how close this will come to Home a lone. With our kids we did have baby sitters. Grandparents occasionally looked after them. Rosalyn your not going to get much studing done.

That’s one of my favorite horror films.

Panel 4 spells disaster beyond our wildest imaginations! hehehe

I know I am repeating myself but Mom and Dad are going to get their evening interrupted .My heroes are pulling all the stops out this time

Panel 1 - AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Panel 2 - Gave the enemy your weakness on a silver platter! Not as bright as you think you are, are you Rosalyn?

Panel 4 - AHAHAHAHAHAHA! Can’t wait till tomorrow, even though I know what happens.

And another title is born!

An original edition “The Revenge of The Baby-sat” is also in my prized, Calvin literary library. There were enough Rosalyn episodes to make a book.

@imbaldeagle, hobbes usually is nice especially to the ladies (like suzie) but u must remember Rosalyn dosn’t give him a goodnight kiss when she sends them to bed early

It’s love, I tell ya! Calvin is in internal conflict: he is madly and hoplessly in love with Rosalyn, yet is too much a self-styled alpha to admit it to himself.

The cognitive dissonance it too much for him (or anyone else) to handle .

Not many know that Roselyn, thanks to a sudden eating disorder, gave up her desire to become a school teacher to join the WWF.

madamepresident, yes there is a book by that title, and I have it, in fact I have all the Calvin & Hobbes books! Wish Bill would do a couple more!

I told you guys, they were going to have a committee meeting on this and now we are going to see the result. The faces would go well on a license plate holder for Darth Vader…

I just looked it up in amazon - The German title of this C&H-book is “The Revenge of the little man” - that’s not as funny as the word “baby sat”. But it’s really hard to translate. I have no idea.

Shucks Susan, I had the feeling somehow that Rosalyn was going to spoil those evil intentions. Oh well, this should be fun nonetheless, :-)

This next string of strips is one of Bill Watersons best. I remember reading these & laughing to tears. Great stuff!

Calvins expression in the last panel is epic.

I wouldn’t call Hobbes the alter ego of Calvin. I think Hobbes is Calvin’s Partner-in-Crime. What I especially love is when other people are in the panel, Hobbes turns into a stuffed animal. Not the roaring dangerous tiger of the jungle.

Tineli,

One of my parents is a native German speaker too, so I have this kind of problem with half my relatives. English contains a lot of expressions in which grammar is degenerated by time, as well as many words whose meaning has evolved in multiple directions at once.

In truth, to be “the baby-sat” is logical relative to being the baby-sitter. But “to be sat” in this situation is not actually past tense, or even passive voice; it is the use of the past participle in an adjective manner. (No more odd than a gerund, which is the use of the present participle as a noun.)

Thus, we say “I am tired” after something tires us, or “it is done” when we have done it … the word describes the status or result (adjective), not the receipt of the action (passive).

This usage is frequent. To be “the sat,” of course, is a particular example that is never heard, which is why it is so typical of a five-year-old - and is so deliberately funny to the ear. Watterson’s sensitivity to the subtleties of spoken language is what makes his comic strip so popular - it strikes the reader as vivid and true.

I remember that Hobbes was pretty rudely disrespected by Rosalyn in the past, so to me it seems quite right that he joins Calvin in his evil delight (although more moderately).

A refreshing change from Hobbes’s usual reluctance to abet the diabolical plots of his best buddy - but a change that Rosalyn has earned. I like it!

Oh my God! Evil encarnate! I didn’t think Hobbes had it in him!

Things are about to get interesting…