Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for August 02, 2015

Does breaking couple of bones have any meaning?

The bottom of that cliff definitely means something.

Boy has a point…..

Everything we endeavour thrives well. When we don’t endeavour it goes worse. Heaven wants to be deserved!!

When it would be fundamentally absurd no one would endeavour, everything would go down the hill, and I’m sure we would have died out since a long time!

I wouldn’t get too concerned about this brief excursion into nihilism on Calvin’s part. Hard to imagine him in the mindset “It’s all over. Why bother with anything? We’re all gonna die.” Not when there are balloons to be filled with water, snowmen to be built, sidewalks to be chalked, and Suzies to be stalked.

If life is fundamentally absurd, that’s not “no meaning”; that’s negative meaning.If life has no meaning, nothing means anything.

matter or not…consequences shall prevail….

Calvin’s way of thinking involves a slippery slope.

That’s it, Calvin. No more Nietzsche until you’re twelve.

Nothing really matters,Anyone can see,Nothing really matters,Nothing really matters to me.

It’s interesting that Watterson said once that he’d never read SKIPPY, because this set-up- rolling down a hill to certain destruction while waxing philosophic and not reacting to the danger- is classic SKIPPY. Well, it could be two minds simply thinking alike.

Maybe it is merely Watterson’s commentary on the cartoon industry

Calvin isn’t a nihilist; he’s a denihilist.

These wagon and sled rides of C&H always seem to remind me of Churchy LaFemme and his attempts at flight. I have always wondered if Watterson was inspired by the Walt Kelly strip or if I am just imagining it.

I don’t understand how they never get injured by doing that.

I believe in nothing; everything is sacred. I believe in everything; nothing is sacred.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absurdism

I asked my son, “If you combine pasta with anti-pasta, would you get an explosion?” He said, “No. But you would be hungry and full at the same time!”

It’s never the fall over the cliff or from any high point that does the damage, it’s the sudden stop at the bottom…

In doing something for others, life gets meaning!

From now on, I’m referring to this strip as Jean-Paul and Hobbes.

Nihilism ? All Calvin is about is adrennalism. Seeing what he does gives me a taste again of that wonderful thing !

So, Calvin, why is it that you can ride your wagon down this treacherous hill and go flying out at lightening speed, but your afraid to ride your bike???

I see Calvin and Hobbes are feeling a little blue in the 2nd panel.

Life is just one big confusing mess to me.

xxx

@Arghhgarrr: Bill Watterson said that Pogo was one of the three main comic strips that inspired him, along with Peanuts and Krazy Kat. Here are three excerpts from a 1989 interview:“Krazy Kat is a completely unique strip. I think it’s the best comic strip ever drawn. Ultimately, though, it’s such a peculiar and idiosyncratic vision that it has little to say to me directly. I marvel at it because it’s beyond duplication. It’s like trying to paint a sunrise — you’re better off not even trying. Peanuts and Pogo have been inspirations, too, but these strips are much more down to earth, and are much closer to my own way of thinking, and have had much more direct influence. Even so, I try to keep the instances of blatant plagiarism to a minimum. Looking back, you’ll see that some of the old strips are one-gag formulas, endlessly varied. Krazy Kat revolves around the tossing of the brick. Little Nemo was always a dream, and you know the kid is going to wake up in a heap at the bottom of his bed in every single strip. I find Herriman a lot more interesting than McCay, but both are working within a very limited construct. It’s a very different approach to cartooning that what we do now. I would go insane working with limited formulas like theirs, but on the other hand, Herriman and McCay gave us something better than gags. Back then, the fun was in the getting there. The destination of each strip was the same, but every day you went there by a different road. Today, we want the strip over as soon as possible — “Just hand me the punch line, please.” The fewer panels, words, and drawings, the better: I think Pogo was the last of the enjoy-the-ride strips. It’s a shame. We’ve really lost what comics do best.”“Walt Kelly died a few years after I discovered Pogo and if it weren’t for the Pogo books I’d have been deprived of a great influence. The same goes for Krazy Kat. New cartoonists don’t have to reinvent the wheel. They can build on others’ accomplishments. Books allow cartoons to live longer and that’s a real service.”“The size issue is crucial to anyone who cares about quality in cartoons. To save space, newsprint, and money, newspapers have been reducing the size of comics for years. It has gotten to the point now, where cartoons can no longer do what they do best. Comic strips are words and pictures, but there is little room for either any more. Most cartoonists, to make their work legible at tiny reproduction, have eliminated panels, line-work, and words, and the result is a drastic loss in character development, storytelling ability, and intelligent humor. A beautiful strip like Pogo would be impossible to read at today’s sizes. Adventure strips are dead. Comics have been deprived of much of their ability to entertain. Now we have a lot of talking heads and gags that could be read with equal effect on the radio.”

@Arghhgarrr and Liverlips McCracken: By the way, I’m a “he.”

Hobbes being a big cat, should be able to land on his feet and doesn’t need to close his eyes

That’s what God knows Calvin.

I vote for everything mattering. But in a chaotic sort of way. God loves fractals.