Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for January 24, 2011

LOVE those goons!

I wish I was that creative when I was younger!

Traffic may be slow but there will be lots more of it as word spreads.

My favorites. Keep going, Calvin!

G’Morning, Marg, Mike & Grog!

Cruel ideas!

With all these death scenes, Calvin’s got a lot of issues for a 6 year-old. And I thought “Mr. Bill” from the classic SNL was mentally insane.

Is panel 2, Watterson’s take on a scene from “Creepshow”?

Nice

yeah,always think positive,dad :D

Calvin is practicing for his future….as an executioner.

This series are the best ones Watterson ever did!

Lol

Forget college savings, the psychiatric care will pretty much use that up. At least Calvin’s eliminating the criminal goons.

And these were the days before reality TV :-p

@chamin i wish those days continue a lot.. as the reality tv eats up a lot of airtime, even on VH1 and MTV!!! bloody hell ppl that s music channel, not a reality tv channel..

Dad’s positive.. Glad to see that.. :D don’t think that he’d remain that positive for too long… the doom called calvin is definitely brewing something in that brain of his…..

Wish I could visit a Calvin and Hobbes theme park!

I love it when kids play in the front yard - sure beats them sitting in front of the tv or texting.

**Good morning Marg! Good morning Fran! Good Morning L’Wolf! Good Morning Grog!**

That boy jist ain’t right

Calvin will probably write science fiction and make millions. Not everyone with imagination is a psych patient. If that were so, then half the authors I read would be locked up in psychiatric hospitals, and the books we read would be very dull.

The snowmen strips are among my favorites.

This is hilarious! Love the Snow Goons!

I think you hit the nail on the head madampresiden12. Some of the comments here infer that Calvin needs Psychiatric help while other comments hail Waterson, who drew Calvin doing these “disturbed” panels as a creative genius. Personally, I agree with the creative assessments.

Do you suppose Steven King started this way?

\\//_

After being chased by live snow goons for three weeks, any of us would end up with some psychological issues that we would need to find ways to deal with.

Calvin’s parents must wonder how Calvin was able to put the upper snowballs on, since they are unable to see Hobbes helping him.

I think Calvin is exactly how alot of us “kids” would like to be! I think visiting a theme park would be great, Reggie!

Hobbes, That reminds me when my older brother and I were kids and we tried to build a snowman. The bottom piece was easier to make, rolling it around in the snow, but when we made the middle piece, it was too heavy for us to lift, so we had to leave it as the bottom for a second snowman. Too bad you weren’t in the neighborhood to help us.

These are some of my favorite strips…. I used to LOVE seeing the new snowmen Calvin came up with every winter and wish it snowed enough here to try my hand at it.

I can understand how people might look twice at such images from folk, but it’s not necessarily a sign of mental disturbance…. sometimes it’s just how creativity gets expressed. In my HS art class we had to make a name-tag to put up with our art in the yearly art show in school. One year mine was a murder scene with my name written in blood on the wall, it got a lot of similar remarks abut me needing counseling but I thought it was just something that would stand out (plus I had just read Helter Skelter).

Let’s just hope there’ll be no accidents. That display can be very distracting….as well as disturbing.

Good Morning, Marg, Mike & ♠Lonewolf♠!

@Grog: A front lawn with such a macabre display would become equally a destination and a distraction, for sure.

madampresiden12 is absolutely spot on. Most youngsters today suffer from lack of imagination, not an excess of it.

As always, one has to admire the father’s enduring pragmatism.

@dkram…Yes…and Spielberg, Lucas, and Cameron, too!

To me there is no difference in what Calvin is doing with the snowmen and kids playing army or cowboys and pretending to shoot their enemies. It is all just part of learning and growing up and pretending to be adults, which with TV and news presents them with murder and death on a daily basis. Children begin to work out in their minds what is right and wrong, what is fantasy and reality.

What are we going to do when spring comes?? No more now goonies…..:o(

One year my friends and I got together and built Calvin and Hobbes style snowmen on the path up to my college campus, including the cannon ball one featured here. It was great fun, and I recommend it to anybody.

Lol…your right LLeRay…I have to switch the brain to destructive mode!!!!

pouncingtiger said, about 10 snowmen ago

” Is panel 2, Watterson’s take on a scene from “Creepshow”?”

I believe its the other way around. BW penned this strip several years ahead of ‘Creepshow”.

Hey Musicnut, than cat Watterson ain’t copying no one else. Take five and let him play a few more choruses. You can come in at the coda. He knows his ax, let him wail.

This strip is one of the best ever for Watterson. THE best of the Snow Goon group. GREAT punchlines are unexpected and catch readers off guard. It’s the punchlines that make or break a cartoon strip. This one is perfect!!

It’s “High Noon” for the doomed goons.

Don’t most people wish this could be done with snow? Like Calvin using destructive ways on snow. By Calvin making all those snow goons and way’s to destroy them burns up energy and sad way creative outlook. But isn’t this Calvin in an evil way.

It would probably slow & increase traffic.

Prison in Calvin’s future I think…

@dkram and King:

Probably, there is a lot of snow in Maine.

We could use Calvin and his snow men at all school zones in this city. Can I post a picture of a snow mans funeral on this cite ?

The strips IMPLY, the readers infer.

Waterson depicting what is “the boy.”

I’m with creative genius, and a little kid who likes to disturb his viewers.

Not all those who create apparently morbid are are to blame, however, as this story about drawing with only black crayons illustrates…

Dad is likely proud of Calvin’s creative art.

Calvin’s snowmen brought back a college memory that I had long forgotten. Some of the guys in the off-campus house I lived in decided to build a snow figure next to the bus stop by the house. It was a large scale figure of human male genitalia, and had a garden hose going up through the middle of it and spraying out of its top. Talk about slowing down the traffic…….

It’s hard to see but my avatar is a picture of my daughter and some neighborhood kids building a ‘Calvin’ snow man. They had a ball!

AWESOME….

This is one of the better ones, but the best snowman strip is where Calvin is contrasting another kids snowman with his own in artistic terms. Can be found here:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y46/fenderrocker/CalvinandHobbeswinter-1.png

Our little Calvin is an evil genius!

I can appreciate Dad’s optimism!

I’m worried about that boy…

A young Stephen King.

Looks like a kid needs some serious counseling.

natashalee not sure which one is your daughter but all the kids look like they are having fun. Did they get the idea from Calvin or just crative on their own?

This is absolutely the BEST comic strip EVER. My dad was in the navy and passed the time at sea carving soap figures and so when he was on leave we would all go to the beach and he would create the most amazing sand sculptures and some of those got WEIRD. I mean bizarre like beautiful mermaids but with fish heads and such and it was something to watch the crowds form up and look. Something about the weird seems to attract us. We all have that morbid curiousity I guess. I sure wish Watterson would come out with at least a SUNDAY ONLY C and H strip.

Now I have some ideas of what to make with my Nuclear Coffee Ground Playdough!!!!

I have tried to make those before…. believe me it’s tough.

These are great, but my fav of all time is the snowman crossing behind Dad’s car.

@ StrummerFan: I would like to be that creative NOW! His snowman series is outrageously funny. Remember the snowman swimmer with sharks following? Yep he was a gonner.

uh oh