Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for January 22, 2024

Laborious leisure builds character.

Dad’s longer version of “It builds character”.

Calvin doth protest too much. He’s shown as having plenty of time to create weird snowmen, including snow goons.

In the U. S., one is supposed to work at not working. It’s one reason why many people in other, saner cultures such as Europe, so often look at us funny.

As i get older, there are parts of Calvin’s dads view on life that i agree more and more with.

That’s a particularly evil look on Calvin’s face in panel 4.

Betcha that hypocrite will spend the rest of the day in front of the dancing boob tube (I’m referring to Dad).

Careful Dad, you may cause brain damage…

Outside? Is there a webpage for that?

Calvin needs a TV in his room!

With Dad’s attitude. I’m surprised there is a television in the house. Perhaps Mom insists, to have an occasional break from Calvin being inventive and creative.

My leisure time is best spent installing technology in my house, cameras, IT networks, building my home studio. Sometimes gardening, all productive.

That works – for Dad. :D

“Kids these days have it easy!”

I get what you mean, but isn’t that the goal…?

Lazy kid. Stops grumbling and starts doing your homeworks!

Back in the day if I watched too much TV during summer break, my mom would boot me outta the house. Plan B: knock on the doors of my friends and ask if they were available. Then we’d go around riding our bikes until the dinner hour. We’d also collect enough cans and bottles to pool our money to buy candy. No Stranger Things stuff, just kids on bikes having fun!

All this talk about leisure is making me tired.

Who knew Calvin could fly that far?

Well, Cal, sometimes leisure is as hard as work. Depends which project you choose. But sometimes the leisure end result is much more satisfying than daily grind.

“You work three jobs? Uniquely American, isn’t it? I mean, that is fantastic that you’re doing that."

― President George W. Bush to a divorced mother of three in Omaha, NE on February 4, 2005”

The 20 hour work week was a pipe-dream of the 1970’s before the coming of Reaganland.

Outdoor fun Calvin. It’s good for you, even it if is mandatory.

And he was using a machine to fill his leisure time. What was wrong with that?

Meanwhile I’m sitting here with pregnancy brain and WANTING to do something interesting with my leisure time, but everything seems too hard…

Dad’s ahead of his time, as usual.

as a teenager one of my first real jobs was working for a sewer company, cleaning sewers ,pumping septic tanks and digging ditches. That job prepared me for life. I ended up working for a railroad for a career and could never understand why the guys complained so much about the work.

Shouldn’t dad be out there with him?

Nowadays, with cell phones, one’s leisure time is getting rarer and rarer, with bosses insisting one be on call 24/7.

So, Dad kicks him out so that Calvin has time to build MORE snow goons?

Do a job that you love to do, and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.

“Arbeit wird dich bwfreien”!

We watch cat videos. It is fun watching cats get scared of cucumbers.

Dad… you want another bizarre snow sculpture in the yard?

One thing for sure, Dad. Your leisure time is never burdened with playing with your son

The correct response was, “Dad, I’m trying to use my leisure time to get educated by this TV commercial so I can explore this new interest of mine after which I’ll invent and create new stuff to give us more leisure time!”

Calvin playing unsupervised outdoors, what could go wrong with that???

LOL…. The classic “Go outside and play !” Never hurt any kid.

Better kick than the Buffalo kicker made last night. Poor Buffalo.

I have to say, Watterson always got the BEST ugly expressions on Calvin’s face!

We have more time and less money.

We need more parents like him!

ADS are the problem!

I am trying to cultivate hobbies and activities that are a bit more edifying. It’s an uphill climb.

My Dad would go through hobbies in a year or so, learning useful things. He did photography and would set up a darkroom in our only bathroom. He took up leather work and made us all fine belts, wallets and bags. His study of auto repair saved us thousands of dollars. He eventually created a magnificent garden at every house where we lived. He did this all on the budget of a military enlisted man with four children. No excuses. It’s your life; make it better.

How is Calvin supposed to educate himself or take up new interests in the cold snow?

When I was a kid I devoured science books. It helped me to read the science fiction that I mostly read as an adult,

Once again, Bill Watterson basically expressing his opinion on then-recent technologies. (Ironically, I can tell he colored the 90s Sunday strips on a computer.)

We get a second job to pay for the machines.

Dad spends his leisure time ruining other people’s leisure time by ranting endlessly.

Again, Bill hadn’t seen nothing yet.

This is an example of the cartoon physics and/or Calvin’s imagination that goes on in the strip, which some of the literalists here try to ignore when gleaning “evidence” for certain things. There’s no way Dad actually kicked Calvin hard enough to propel him that far. The average weight of a six-year-old boy is over 40 pounds. But, and this is key, it makes for a funny visual.

When I was six, that response would earn me a spanking.

You often wonder about the kind of childhood Dad had.

Oh, and that is a direly bad sweater by the way.

I love panel #3 – it says so much. LOL. :D

he seems like a brat

I draw, I walk and I learn Japanese.