Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for August 27, 2023

Summer has come and passed

The innocent can never last…

And Calvin’s answer is: “ROAR!”

They can make me be here but they can’t make me learn

32, of course…

Wouldn’t that be 2 – 3?

5 would be a weird shape for a dinosaur.

Calvin would be a Natural at the Natural History Museum Sleep over.

They call it Dino snores……

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Darn It! Got it on the sixth attempt! Remember to change the (multiple) "DOT"s for “.”’s

oh my goodness

It’s Pentasaurus, Mrs. Wormwood.

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Hands up all those who didn’t have similar fantasies at school.

Other things on Calvin’s mind.

Hey Calvin, divide by zero.

School starts tomorrow in my neighborhood.

Calvin prefers imagining two and three as dinosaurs rather than adding them together. His imagination is always better than his addition. I sometimes quote Bill Watterson’s comment, “I suspect he’s more real than any kid can make up.” This was quoted as Watterson’s response to the question of whether Hobbes is real or imaginary within the strip.

Calvin has a very vivid imagination so it was easy for me to believe for several months that he was imagining Hobbes. I finally started to doubt this when I saw that Hobbes lives on after Calvin has left him. Furthermore, Hobbes is more mature than Calvin and sees different sides of an argument where Calvin can only see one side. The complexity that Watterson put into Hobbes makes this strip wonderful.

I always had a fondness as a kid for those shape-number comparisons.

Watch out…kid over-bored!

I bet if there was a next panel, he’d say “dinosfour”. Still gets it wrong without the “dinos” though.

Oh to have that kind of imagination again. It would make work fun!

Always enjoy Cal’s flights of imagination. Entertaining even if not very good for his performance in class.

I swear Watterson must have known me in grade school. I was Calvin.

Calvin is still on summer vacation! I can’t say that I blame him! Going back to school in the middle of AUGUST is ridiculous! ☹️

The answer is 5, Calvin. Wake up.

2023 was a horrible summer for most of the US; blistering heat, humidity, tornados, wildfires—and Republicans!!

Takes a while to recalibrate the brain from fund to facts.

I love Calvin and Hobbes.

In elementary school, each year we would get “readers”. I would finish all stories in the first week, and then be bored the rest of the (half) year. One size does not fit all.

He’s just adding one pterodactyl to two brontosauruses

Obviously Calvin is stupid, because he’s not a perfect student the way I’ve deluded myself into thinking I was.

11 + 10 = 101 and 101 +101 = A(If you’re a witch)

Calvin has number/dinosaur synesthesia.

Yep….back to school. Poor Rover, missing Calvin for sure.

…School days….

sigh

Have a great school year, kids.

School days, school days, good old golden rule days..

Magnificent! Brilliant artwork perfectly capturing an imaginative child’s brief excursion into the imagery provoked by the powers of association. Pattern recognition is at the very core of human cognition — to say nothing of our survival instincts.

I was at a high school STEM event where an 11th grade student was asked what 7 times 4 was. He replied that he was not good at math. Turns out he never had to learn the multiplication tables. They used calculators instead.

I told this story to a friend of mine who related a similar story: His son would always come into their kitchen and ask what time it was. There was a clock on wall but his son had never learned how to read an analog clock.

I told both stories to a former employee at lunch. He too related a similar story: His daughter and her husband were buying a house. He had to sign the mortgage papers. He was interrupted when printing his name because it required a signature instead. He told the realtor that he never learned cursive. The realtor asked that he practice creating a “signature”, something that he could identify as his 30 years from now.

While these seem like grave educational omissions, things change over time. Most of us no longer know how to change the wick in a lantern or hitch up a team of horses.

(“I wish she’d leave me alone; my mind’s on larger things.”)

I would take notes in the form of cat cartoons. Whatever keeps you interested is the way to do it.

I keep forgetting, Bill has done such fabulous art!…

Now, a kid would have his nose glued to his phone, watching TikTok videos.

3+2 = …nah. Sauropods can’t fly. Fooey.

What dinosaur looks like a five?