Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for November 04, 2018

And then Calvin returns to Earth.

This comic was really controversial when it was first posted, to which Bill replied “Clearly you’ve never been to school yourself”, or something like that.

This is the one I thought GoComics would pre-empt.

Sigh! no soft landing on that one.

the elementary school I went to in Clallam County, Washington for kindergarten and first grade still stands (last I remember going to the county), but it is closed since 2004 due to low enrollment.

Funny. I kept thinking that every time summer ended.

Calvin, school shooter.

My old high school was converted to apartments.

One summer, one wing of the elementary school I attended burned. All they did was send the kids to other schools in the district. I had to do sixth grade as “the new kid”. Nightmare.

In the middle of the BTTF trilogy Marty finds out in that nightmare world the school had been burned down 6 years before. (1985 and Richard Milhouse Nixon is still president and still prosecuting the Vietnam war.) Along with Biff Tannen being a billionaire and obviously has interfered with the time line in a very big way.

Tannen must have made sure the break in wasn’t noticed or maybe Woodward & Bernstein couldn’t write their stories on it that led to the Watergate cover up and Nixon resigning. I do wonder what changed that kept the USA in Vietnam 10 years after they pulled out in our time line? That Time cover showing Nixon between Tannen and Elvis with crossed M-16’s about the some Drug War getting more militarized was memorable too.

By 1996 it was a full on war on the streets of L.A. in “Demolition Man” and later in 1997 as seen in “Predator II” where everyone who can is packing weapons.

Anybody else remember the song The School Is Burning Down (sung to the tune of The Battle Hymn Of The Republic)?

I guess little princes growing up in Saudi Arabia dream of doing something like this for real, where their own dads get to take out school buses and so on.

“And I’m never going back to my old school….”

Putting his goggles on is a real stretch. It is! Make the ‘okay’ sign with both hands, flip them toward you, place the Os over your eyes and stretch your other fingers over your cheekbones. I think we called it the Owl Mask.

I had no idea that Calvin had homicidal tendencies.

F-15 pilots have to go to school too.

It’s of course humorous and a good portrayal of how kids think, but my immediate reaction was one of pain. I live near Sandy Hook.

On foggy mornings, I would imagine that the school had disappeared into the mist. Never did.

What happens to us when we get old? Do we lose the ability to imagine? Imagination gives us a control over reality that doesn’t exist otherwise. It also, sometimes, creates reality when an off-the-wall idea comes back and says, “Now wait a minute! This could happen. All you have to do is tweak …”

Imagination is a gift. Use it or lose it! Just remember when it’s all over, you have to come back and punch-in with reality again.

How different it reads in an age of school attacks and bombings. Still matched my mood towards school when I was young.

I felt the same way about my elementary school. It probably had something to do with the ruler whippings on my palms from the Brunhilde principal. That was maybe 50 years ago if your wondering how they could do it and I wasn’t exactly a model student.

30 years ago, a child destroying his school was a joke.

I hope he blew it up before the teachers and other staff arrived in the morning.

I attended my first airshow at Dulles International when I was not much older than Calvin. It was thrilling, unforgettable … and I have been buzzing unsuspecting crowds in public places in my imagination ever since.

Kids don’t think ahead. Clearly it does not occur to Calvin that if his school were destroyed he would not be freed, but rather enrolled in another.

Back when school shootings were still cool, huh?

Reminds me of the end of a British movie called Hope And Glory.

Great shooting, Calvin! Stupendous!

At a given speed, the lower you fly, the less time a ground target is visible. And Calvin was flying at about Mach 2.

Oh man, his school doesn’t even have a name?

My dream from second grade to graduate school.

Waterson is an outstanding graphic artist, the worlds he creates for Calvin to live in are astonishing.

This is my favorite Calvin strip. I had similar fantasies when I was his age.

I hope the High School didn’t take too much damage!

Isn’t this a rerun? I know I have seen this before…

I love this comic strip, but blowing up his school probably wasn’t a good message to send with all the sicko’s that we have.

This isn’t dissimilar to my own school fantasies.

I’ve dreamed of doing the same thing to every school I’ve gone to. The school board finally agreed with me. They tore down my elementary school, but built a new one on the site with the same name. Next went the junior high school, which they didn’t replace. Next was the high school. They replaced it with a school named after our chief rival from my high school days.

I like how the school Calvin goes to is just called “ELEMENTARY SCHOOL.” Is that super-generic or what?

oof you thought

Acronym for school: S=seven c=crappy h=hours o=of o= our l= lives