Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for March 28, 2023

A few years later, a teenage Calvin can get all the information he wants about graffiti on the internet.

Even if it’s just books, still a better investment than what Calvin has in mind.

If not your local public library, Calvin? Maybe ask your parents to take you to a bookstore where you could possibly find a such a book (disguised as wanting to get a new comic book)?

Tagging is to art as HipHop is to music?

Lots of cheap romance novels, instead of the really useful do-it-yourself books you need, Calvin.

He should check with the Banksy Branch Library.

Well, he’ll have plenty of time to study the “art” living under a highway overpass, and living in a cardboard box!!

The Child Psychology section is extennnnnn-sive.

The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls.

Taggers, like dogs, leave their mark on any vertical surface. However, urine can be washed away.

My wife and I used to admire some of the graffiti on railroad cars as a train passed by a crossing. Some of it is really, really artistic. I can’t believe we were the only ones to have noticed that.

Salary?

Instead of the library he should have called the Banksy.

It’s funnier when you decipher the phone cord secret message in panel two.

I used to work in a bookstore, and there is a book about graffiti art… you could only special order it, and we kept it behind the counter until the customer picked it up. ( Playboy and its competitors, however, were sold openly on the magazine racks. Go figure.)

Imagine Calvin and the Internet. This, explosives, all his schemes he could have fotten info on.

The last train is nearly due

The underground is closing soon

And in the dark deserted station

Restless in anticipation

A man waits in the shadows

His restless eyes leap and scratch

At all that they can touch or catch

And hidden deep within his pocket

Safe within his silent socket

He holds a colored crayon

Now from the tunnel’s stony womb

The carriage rides to meet the groom

And opens wide and welcome doors

But he hesitates, then withdraws

Deeper in the shadows

And the train is gone suddenly

On wheels clicking silently

Like a gently tapping litany

And he holds his crayon rosary

Tighter in his hand

Now from his pocket quick he flashes

The crayon on the wall he slashes

Deep upon the advertising

A single-worded poem comprised

Of four letters

And his heart is laughing, screaming, pounding

The poem across the tracks rebounding

Shadowed by the exit light

His legs take their ascending flight

To seek the breast of darkness and be suckled by the night

Long ago i worked as a clerk in a public library. I was on the front desk one day when a lady came in and said “Do you have any books?” She was serious.

Me? I literally had a building behind me full of book shelves full of books. The urge for was wise a$$ answer was almost over powering.

I eventually extracted form her what she needed on what subject but wow, what an opening line.

Calvin on the internet, that’s scary!

Here ya go Nate , Graffiti Cookbook: The Complete Do-It-Yourself-guide to Graffiti Kindle Edition by Björn Almqvist, A rich source of inspiration for anyone interested in do-it-yourself culture, this is a guide to the materials and techniques used in today’s most creative and progressive art movement. In hundreds of pictures and illustrations and dozens of interviews with the world’s most famous artists, the authors show exactly how graffiti is made. From spray techniques and hand styles to tools and style analysis, this is a trip around the world for the tricks of graffiti writers. Includes • tips on how to create your own piece, tag and throw up • how to use textiles, glass, metal, concrete or wood • with Swet, Jurne, Mad C, Egs and Chob as some of the featured artists. https://www.amazon.com/Graffiti-Cookbook-Complete-Do-Yourself-guide-ebook/dp/B00LWJVF4I/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1NY11XPQNT9XO&keywords=graffiti&qid=1680005340&s=digital-text&sprefix=graff%2Cdigital-text%2C77&sr=1-1

I’ll bet chatGPT could help…

You had them at “dirty words and slogans”, Calvin!

He can probably learn everything he wants to know by seeing the graffito on the buildings he sees from the school bus on the way to school.

What we needed to do before the internet

Books have been written on the subject, Calvin. But getting them published has been a little tougher.

They spend their time and money on removing Republican Denounced books from their shelves. Very busy work!

Ahead of his time. There are coffee table books about graffitti art now.

If he thinks graffiti can be learned in a library, he probably thinks ‘Juvenile delinquent’ is a job with a 401k.

What year was this written? The internet wasn’t really a thing until 1996, as far as I know. That was the year I bought my kids their own computer.

This strip looks like it was made by someone else

About 15 years ago, I went on a gang tour of Los Angeles, led by ex-gang members. They drove us to sites with gang significance, and provided us with a history of local gangs. We also learned a lot about graffiti. I can’t remember most of it, but I do remember their describing a “throw up,” which is an elaborate tag.

Now you just research “Banksy”. :)

kids today— “corded phone? library? BOOK? OMG, like, i don’t understand this at all, dude!”

Graffiti is just vandalism writ large

LOL… I am sure any good library has those books. The research assistant heard it was a little boy on the phone.

There’s some great graffiti art out there. https://www.thecollector.com/graffiti-wall-art/

The libraries spend all their money on lawsuits to try to keep books on the shelf that certain politicians don’t want people to see.

there are probably encyclopedias worth of reference material about graffiti and its cultural significance, even in Calvin’s time. Some of the greatest artists ever did graffiti. Of course a list of dirty words and slogans is likely something you can find in a book too, but I doubt a public library would bother with it.

Hobbes must be hiding, I don’t see him.

…and years later after this comic strip originally appeared:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=graffiti&i=stripbooks&sprefix=graffitti%2Cstripbooks%2C151&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_2_9

When in elementary school they took us older kids to the town library. We were allowed in the teen section. Some of us boys would grab an age appropriate book quickly to bring home. Then we we had time to look at things mom wouldn’t approve of. ;)

That OK, Calvin. They’re gonna defund all them libraries anyway. Too many books with Dangerous Ideas.

in today’s culture they probably have that at least a couple books on those topics

That book was still being written back then