Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for December 26, 2021

Did Calvin just admit playing with Hobbes isn’t real?

What’s losing in a game of checkers like in real life, Calvin?

Don’t get him started on Chess.

Charlie Brown act in the same way when he loses to checkers.

You sure that this strip isn’t in any way political? It certainly brings certain people to mind, 30 years later…

If losing in real life, he tells a big lie, and it snowballs from there.

Calvin 2024.

It’s easy for the WINNER to say “It’s just a game.”

Displaying schizophrenic & paranoid behavior!!! Panel #10 confirms it!!

Does this mean these two are not real? Oh my!

I’m surprised Hobbes didn’t get whiplash in panel 8.

Going into a rage over beating yourself. Seriously schizoid.

Thank goodness – for every Calvin, there is a Hobbes.

Hobbes must be the most patient tiger in the world.

Today’s strip reminds me of my two nephews who were kids when I started reading Calvin and Hobbes in 1987. After I bought my first Calvin and Hobbes collection “Something Under The Bed Is Drooling” in May 1988, I let my nephews read the book and they both enjoyed it. One of my nephews asked me “Is Hobbes really a stuffed tiger as he sometimes seems real?” I had to admit that I was starting to wonder about that myself.

As I’ve said before, my oldest nephew was born in 1979 when I was just twelve. Therefore, he was as old as Calvin in 1985 when the strip started.

Calvin, there’s a girl named Lucy who wants to play checkers with you. When I asked her why, she said you provide better entertainment value! :D

There are days I feel the same way. Not many, but it happens

Kinda like the Orange Goblin giving himself mulligans and moving the ball when no one is looking. My goodness, the last election.

It is human nature to blame other people or other things for our own failings. Most of us grow out of it to some extent or another.

Hasn’t this played out on the front pages ?

the paper-thin difference between losing inspiring you to try again and losing causing you to give up forever.

Aw, Calvin, you haven’t yet lost a game in real real life!! (Bring on the snow goblins!!)

Well, it looks like he is ready for Trump University. (I think TU got shut down, so maybe Calvin did make it there after all)

I used to be fairly good at chess but checkers not so much.

I understand, Calvin. I understand.

Any else feel that Calvin made some people more amenable to the way politics is nowadays, rather than be skeptical of things like thinking you must always win or be right? I will say we can debate Watterson’s intentions, but he probably didn’t expect the consequences of his work on the generation that read him. Like say Star Wars fans actually preferring the Empire to the Jedi. (That’s another whole ball of wax. Have a good Sunday.)

As we have recently seen, the only thing worse than a poor loser is … a rich loser.

There is a picture that floats around on facebook from time to time of a Monopoly board or something that someone got P.O. at and flipped over onto the floor. It makes me laugh but at the same time, it is kind of sad. There really are people out there that get mad if they start losing at card games or whatever is being played.

I felt this way when I lost at 3D chess. Too bad I only played 1 game

If you lose to yourself and resent it it’s a symptom.

And he grew up to be president.

Hmmm. Calvin doing his impression of a young donny trump ?

And he’s ready for another game,

At least Hobbes didn’t gloat and rub it into Calvin about winning, the way my brother would when we were younger and he’d beat me at games…

What a lightweight. Charley Brown lost 70,000 games to Lucy back in the day!

With that kind of attitude I guess Calvin will be a whiner or a successful politician.

“The prophets’ words are written on the subway walls…”

And sometimes in the comics. Twenty or thirty years before a thing happens.

When I first read this strip, I was so young that I couldn’t think of anything you could lose at besides a game. And yes, I was a pretty sore loser back then.

Look at the artwork! Panel 5, Calvin’s teeth! Last panel, wadded up board!

Sometimes you wins, sometimes you lose. What? You never won at this? Well, too bad loser!

Wait until he learned the game of life – and I’m not talking about the board game, either.

Is it just me or does Calvin seem to have a touch of schizophrenia?

“Hack, paint, pant”?