Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for December 29, 2023

The making of a used car salesman.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Or in this case, replace.

He’s been watching too many car commercials.

“Rosebud!”

Shame you don’t have a toboggan factory!

Surprising that Dad didn’t make Calvin shovel the snow.

A way to steer it might be useful.

I don’t remember any other strip mentioning the exact year. They’re usually kept more timeless.

I wonder what skiam Calvin has thought up that sled to this…..(Pun intended™)……..

Calvin never thinks these things through, does he?

There used to be a ‘fashion colour’ in womens coats each year, as well as for cars. But they never went for silver grey, slate grey, cloud grey any other dam’ grey you can think of, year after year.Mind you, they did go for lilac, lime green and shit-brown, so maybe Mr Ford is right.

The one he’s wearing looks to be in good condition.

Calvin discovers planned obsolescence.

Toboggans have ‘Model Eras’. Updated every few decades.

How about the ’24’s Calvin?

Do they even make tobbagans any more? Whatever… The Count is sure a vintage ’94 would be considered a classic now.

It ain’t broken, Calvin; don’t try to fix it.

Pimp that tobaggon?

The way Calvin tides his toboggan, he probably needs one with seatbelts and airbags.

Uh-oh…

You give that sled fins and scalloped sides and your crash rate will only increase;

Toboggans, the original self-driving vehicle.

You’ve been watching car commercials again – haven’t you?

We never had a toboggan. I’d just trip my brother and then ride him down the hill.

has it been thirty years?

We have a place near us that has a toboggan run. Great family fun, weather permitting.

We were poor growing up and the folks did the best they could. dad worked and drank his paycheck. mom worked and ran the house. one year a coworker handed down a toboggan to dad to give to me cause his son wanted a faster one. i spent two weeks sanding it by hand and then putting 3 coats of paste wax on it. It ran faster than the other kids when we met at the hill.

What sort of features is Calvin hoping for? Stereo? Heated seats? Power steering?Air bag?

Come look at this new, improved ‘95 model coming out soon.. it’s a beauty in all the new colors, too. Calvin may have had a good idea.

Read Edward Bernays. Considered the father of Public Relations, his book PROPAGANDA was a favorite of Josef Goebbels. Perfected what Bernays called “ The engineering of consent.”

Remember, the red ones go faster.

.

They also get the most speeding tickets, but you take your chances.

The 90’s were the time for the humongous SUVs. So Calvin can invent the SUT.

Now, if it were an original “Rosebud” sled, he might actually have a fortune.

“Features and Options”…… such as?

So if my math is correct Calvin would now be about 36 years old. I wonder if he still has Hobbes in his life. Maybe he’s handed him down to Calvin Jr.

At first glance I thought he was saying he needed new tobacco.

“What do you mean, toboggans don’t have internet access??!”

Why do I get the feeling this inspired a lot of the dot com era entrepreneurs?

General fact about face masks for consideration: as the Japanese (who wore face masks long before the rest of us) and others already know, the wearing of a face mask is not, and never was, intended to protect the wearer. They are frequently used in such things as surgery (where there is ample evidence of their effectiveness) to protect OTHERS against YOU. In a number of countries, it is considered polite to wear a mask if you have a cold, to stop you spreading it unnecessarily.

Unfortunately, this got confused by a great deal of people, including the media, who erroneously thought they were protecting themselves. This misunderstanding has led to a number of claims they ‘don’t work’, leading to people refusing to wear them and promptly infecting others.