Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for September 13, 2023

Call them synthetic aesthetics.

All those “B” words you called Susie a while back should work just fine.

It’s our own world and we can do as we want.

Nah, just walk some where else.

dadthedawg hasn’t posted in 7 days. Here’s hoping he’s on vacation.

At least they aren’t a lovely pair o ducks!

Be ready. I usually think of a retort some weeks later :(

Sez you! So’s your old man!

Sounds like something Groucho Marx’s might say………….

I get that a lot…

Maybe someone will call him the delusional boy with his imaginary big cat.

Call them “a peck picker of pickled peppers.”

L’Esprit de L’Escalier

“Peripatetic” just doesn’t carry much opprobrium.

Back in the 1970s, The Six Million Dollar Man made the word “bionic” fashionable. I started using “trionic” to mean “better than bionic”, “onic” to mean “only half as good as bionic” and “unonic” to mean “not good at all”. I once called another boy in my class an “unonic oodle” and he retorted by calling me an “uncouth youth”. Ironically, he was younger than me as I was born in December 1966 and he was born in April 1967.

Did anyone else have to look up that word?

They’ve become aimless amblers

That’s not rhyming, Hobbes; it’s alliteration. Kinda like the episodes of PERRY MASON.

If that happens, use your ugly cretin whistle. You’ll get em’ back without sayin’ a word, AND without them knowing that you did, and that is the best way.

I doubt anyone will call you that. I know I never heard of the word in the first place.

Oh yeah? Well you’re a solitary sedentary estuary.

1 : of or relating to the Greek philosopher Aristotle or his philosophy : Aristotelian 2 : of, relating to, or given to walking 3 : moving or traveling from place to place : itinerant.

I’ve heard the word before, but never understood what ‘peripatetic’ means. Now I have to go look it up.

I learned a new word.

You are a pathetic person for traveling a lot for the purpose of working?

New York calls it homeless people.

“Pish-Posh” would do nicely.

I wouldn’t bother with a retort I’d just go somewhere else. :)

I wrote the equivalent of a gossip column for my school’s weekly newspaper. I got the scoops by chatting with classmates during lunch and after-school events.

The editor titled to column Paul’s Peregrinations. I had to look it up.

Calvin likes his comforts and amenities, so I doubt the peripatetic lifestyle would appeal to him for very long.

Watterson had it right. My dictionary defines peripatetic as a person who walks or travels about. That’s exactly what Calvin and Hobbes are doing in the first frame.

“Nattering, nabobs of negativism”, that’s what president Nixon’s V.P. (Spiro Agnew) called their critics.

Retort: “Up Your Nose with a Rubber Hose” ~ Vinny Babarino.

“I know you are, but what am I?” (R.I.P. Paul Reubens)

Respond, “No, we’re the duo of dastardly deeds, done diligently, dude.”

The twisted, modern version of the old Boy Scouts motto: Be Prepared.

Apparently Hobbes hasn’t heard of rap battles.

‘’ a ready retort’‘?? try ’’so’s your muther’’

Better to be prepared.

An alliterative rhyme, yet.

“How can anyone who acts so dumb, have such a gigantic, stinky bum?” ☺

Are either of them diabetics?

Uh… doesn’t “peripatetic” mean “prostitute”?

You should mock them for knowing what the word “peripatetic” means.

A ready retort? What do they plan to distill?

I always thought a paradox was two physicians.

“Oh yeah, so what of it?”

Cool, I learned a new word.

Howard Cosell used the term “Inane Drone” as a retort to an insult. The trick is not to use profanity

I knew I would one day have a use for the word I coined for my brother (not as a description of him): “peripathetic”

John Prine rhymed “critics” with “syph’litic parasitics”.

That’s a great look on Calvin’s face, third panel!

Channelling Adam west

I memorized a few witty retorts against some future need when I was young. I actually did use one once and felt like I’d just invented poetry. The rest I sat on for years and years until I ultimately forgot them.

I noticed the alliteration, but didn’t realized there was a rhyme there until after I read the last panel.

“Who starts a conversation like that, we just started walking!”

It’s not really an insult, is it?

How about ………" A number of neolithic, numbassed, nomads" to paraphrase Calvin.

Aristotle made “peripatetic” a term of praise.

Maybe Calvin should be posting comment on GoComics!

When I was an undergrad – in 1982 – the college’s main frame computer had a function that would output rhyming insults like that.

How is it possible that NO ONE has noticed that this is a beautiful PUN? “pair uh puh thetic” vs “pair uh puh tetic”!! At Pearls Before Swine they would be all over this.

No retort — indeed pathetic.

Panel three, Calvin is really annoyed by that possibility.

You should always have a ready retort!

It’s late on a Wednesday and so I say nattering nabobs of negativism … who is famous in American History for those words?

They’d have to be really intelligent and clever to call Calvin and Hobbes such an alliterative thing.