Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for May 04, 2023

I’m shocked… shocked! Well, not really.

With Susie’s motto, I doubt anyone will get injured at her parade.

What better way to keep people safe than by warning them about an over imaginative kid who thinks his tiger is alive?

So satisfying to see his inflated ego punctured.

Those imaginary headlines are priceless.

Calvin unexpectedly (and dramatically) learns the foibles of day-dreaming.

It’s a fix! His was far better.

Few injured?

Poor Calvin, how high the fall is from up there.

Why does Susie look like Pac Man in the last panel??

It’s great to see Calvin’s oversized ego punctured!!

I suppose in tomorrow’s strip, he’ll be sulking angrily, and maybe blaming Hobbes for his loss.

As I said earlier this week, I particularly like today’s strip and one of the best things about it is that it has what I called “an unusual view of Hobbes”.

Bill Watterson has explained “I do not see Hobbes as a stuffed doll who miraculously comes to life when alone with Calvin. Neither do I see Hobbes as a product of Calvin’s imagination.” Today, we see a photograph of Hobbes which turns out to be in Calvin’s imagination but it is not Hobbes as Calvin sees him but Hobbes as other characters see him. Presumably, Watterson intended this to show how other people would see the photograph that Calvin is imagining!

Another thing I especially like is the headline “Calvin Drives Fire Engine: Few Injured” and the later detail “On-lookers dived for cover and, amazingly, few people were…”

Photographs of Hobbes occasionally appeared in the strip during its ten year run. I think that only one of them was seen from Calvin and Hobbes’s viewpoint. Calvin took a photograph of Hobbes and we saw him and Hobbes look at it so it showed Hobbes as he and Calvin both see him – as a living humanoid tiger.

A Sunday strip showed Calvin taking photographs of Hobbes pulling faces. We got to see the faces that Hobbes was pulling as Calvin took the photographs but we only saw the photographs from Dad’s viewpoint. He saw them all as identical photographs of the tiger that he can only see as a stuffed doll. Calvin didn’t know that and thought Dad could see the faces Hobbes had been pulling:

Dad: All these photos are of Hobbes!?

Calvin: Aren’t they a scream? Can I have ten bucks for another roll of film?

Another Sunday strip showed Hobbes pouncing on Calvin when he returned home from school. This time, Calvin had his camera with him and took a photograph of Hobbes before Hobbes knocked him down. Calvin showed the photograph to Dad and said, “There! That’s what he does!” Dad saw Hobbes as a stuffed doll, of course, but could see that Hobbes was in mid-air. In the last panel, an indignant Hobbes was saying to Calvin, “He thinks what!? That you picked me up and tossed me in the air!? I’ve never been so insulted in all my life!”

Well, he’s close to a meltdown after this!!

Dreams shattered.

Of course it had to be Suzie that won.

One deflated ego coming up…….

Darn! Does that mean he doesn’t get to drive the fire engine?

Calvin’s daydreams are like Ralphie’s in A Christmas Story when he gets the A++++++++++++++++ for his theme on the Red Ryder BB Gun.

Did Calvin really think he was going to win? Even if he did, it wouldn’t make the front pages

Cal’s ego, as usual suffers death by a thousand cuts

Of course she did…

You’d think the Tiger in the second panel should look real, as this is Calvin’s daydream.

There’s got to be some mistake!!

Shocking

Will it be da agony of da feat or will revenge be his?

Are we sure that Calvin didn’t grow up to become Donald Trump? lol

Oh, don’t ask so surprised. Your poster was nothing but blood and gore!

If using the “u”, you have to go with the fully German “wunderkind”. Otherwise, I suppose you could make the English version as “wonderkid”. That mistake in his fantasy cost him the win.

yeah, my life never lived up to my daydreams either.

Hubris Calvin, hubris. Peter S. Beagle remarked, "We are not always what we seem, and hardly ever what we dream.

It could be a good state motto for Texas or Mississippi

Yeah ! I predicted this outcome yesterday… Wake up call for Calvin’s ego and delusions of grandeur. He better go consult Hobbes.

A Calvin statue only 80 feet high?

True genius is recognized, after it’s lost. Sigh.

Over the top, priceless.

BY A GIRL? Obviously that traitor Hobbs had to have helped her.

Not shocked at all- – I predict he will fail this assignment.

One great thing about rereading a strip you haven’t in a while: you notice little details: in this case the smaller gags like “few injured” or the fact they razed town hall to put up calvin’s statue. You forget things sometimes.

Ah yes. The first lesson of competition, sometimes you lose.

I picture this classic stock music track accompanying the three panels…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DryoR_YZzyQ

I also bet that Susie’s poster used a slogan very much like what Calvin’s Mom suggested!

actually, calvin’s was pretty good

Like a revelation in a basement two years ago

Suzie probably deserves it. What did her poster say?

The votes were clearly done on Dominion!

Classic case of expectation vs reality.

That grandiosity balloon was fun, until it popped!

And here we are. Thirty years after this strip was first published and it turns out Calvin was correct after all.

Yes Calvin, sometimes reality sucks.

I love how Watterson actually put forth the effort to write out portions of the newspaper stories instead of just leaving them as squiggles on the page. The attention to detail really elevates this strip (and makes it significantly funnier).

Not sure which is funnier, the fact that he assumes winning a first grade class poster contest would make such an impression on the general public, or that he planned to celebrate his traffic safety win by recklessly mowing people down with his fire engine.

I love that Calvin thinks that winning an elementary school contest grants him a parade, City Hall replaced with his statue, and an interview.

I think he would have been more disappointed if he did win, and got none of that

Who’s “roadkill” now? :)

It was a struggle to avoid reading the last panel until I’d made it through the newspaper fine print, but I did it!

Where’s MY statue? :)

I love that the newspaper articles have real text not just squiggly lines.

Calvin should market a roadkill jig-saw puzzle. People will never be able to put it together.

Yeah, school pretty much sucks.

I would demand a recount!

Calvin, however, would simply bazooka the entire classroom. Hobbes would sit back, shaking his head.

It’s the “Few Injured” part of the headline that makes me laugh.

I just know Watterson was having a ball writing those little news blurbs

A boy our daughter went to high school with applied to a prestigious college. He got mail from the college and took it to school to dazzle his friends with his acceptance. It was a mistake. He received the small envelope. That’s the one with the letter that begins, “We’re sorry to inform you…” or something like that. The acceptance comes in a big envelope that includes a bunc of forms. He never lived it down.

We all know the contest was rigged, right? Right??

A few mentioned that it was nice that the articles were readable. I liked that even in his imaginary article, he was a menace to society. Driving a firetruck at over 50MPH over lawns. Hilarious.

Just a couple of injured, that’s all.

Nnnnnnoooooooooo!!!!!!

It’s an ugly scene, folks. Calvin has collided with reality. Their taking him off the field. There’s no movement. It doesn’t look good. Stay tuned for further developments as they happen. ;-p

Those newspaper headlines really show Calvin’s mindset. I am thinking Susie went in just seeking to do her best and letting the chips fall where they may. Unlike Calvin thinking he’s a genius and that the poster contest is his first step to fame and fortune.

“MASSIVE ILLEGAL VOTER FRAUD!” – Calvin, probably