Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for April 06, 2024

Don’t worry Calvin, all the information you want will be available on the internet in couple of years — and the NSA will know all about for what you’re searching.

Next comes this: “FBI! OPEN UP!”

Imagine how that would play out if that call were placed today.

Calvin must be related to Stewie Griffin or The Brain!!

Calvin, you should have gotten your self a Loompanics catalog. They have all kinds of books. Making bombs, growing weed, make money off the books, and many more.

Sheldon Cooper?

Yes, no wonder Calvin. And now they are all on some ticetietockity thingamabob.

Tear gas is much easier to make than explosives.

(just saying… )

With requests like this, how is Calvin not on a watchlist somewhere?

Having followed Calvin for years, I am certain this gag if not the artwork has been done before.

As I mentioned in my reply to the comment about tear gas, kids love explosions. I loved the explosions in animated cartoons and in comics and later on in live action movies and TV shows. The Dukes Of Hazard and The A-Team were two TV shows from my teenage years in which explosions regularly occured.

Today’s strip also reminds me of a Sunday strip which began with Calvin and Hobbes watching their bouncing TV set. An explosion occurs in the bouncing TV set and a voice from it says, “Oooh! You’ve twicked me for the wast time, Wabbit!” Calvin laughs and says, “Ha! Ha! Ha! I wish I had some dynamite!” That Sunday strip did not continue the theme of Calvin wishing he had some dynamite but brought Dad into the story. Dad told Calvin that he should be playing outside not watching TV and he turned the TV off. Calvin and Hobbes walked away from the house. The last panel showed them at Susie’s house with Susie seeing Hobbes as a stuffed doll. Calvin said, “Hi Susie, can we come in and watch TV?” As this was an early strip, Susie replied, “Sure, come on in. There’s a commercial showing.”

That was in the very early days when Calvin and Susie were much more friendly towards one another than would later be the case although they still have some friendly moments in later story arcs such as the Baseball arc in 1990 and the Snow Goons arc in 1991. In the former, they play together on a teeter-totter. In the latter, Susie comes and admires the fort that Calvin and Hobbes made to protect themselves from the first Snow Goon – who had been making more Snow Goons while they were making the fort.

In the sixties all you had to do was copy out the instructions from a good technical encyclopaedia, usually found in the reference section, tear gas, rocket fuel and drug synthesis were also things you could get the info for at your local public library.

Calvin once hammered nails, randomly, and for no apparent reason, into the coffee table. I …really…wouldn’t give him bomb instructions.

And people wondered why we developed school reading lists.

“Honey, why is NSA and the FBI at the door?”

“I dunno…I’ll go ask Calvin.”

Calvin should find this book interesting: “The Radioactive Boy Scout: The Frightening True Story of a Whiz Kid and His Homemade Nuclear Reactor”, by Ken Silverstein.

You pint-sized bonehead!! Are you trying to get your parents arrested?! Furthermore, why would a kid ask for something like that in the first place?!

Had a book like that years ago.

An informed reference librarian would have recommended the Anarchist Cookbook:“The Anarchist Cookbook, first published in 1971, is a book containing instructions for the manufacture of explosives, rudimentary telecommunications phreaking devices, and related weapons, as well as instructions for the home manufacture of illicit drugs, including LSD” Wikipedia

Well, that one certainly didn’t age well…

When I was in high school, there was a kid I knew who tried to make a pipe bomb. He ended up blowing off his thumb and a couple of fingers on one hand.

And are sometimes thankful that they don’t read.

Calvin, be reasonable.

Nowadays, searching such info in Google will make you person of interest. And the police will knock at your door.

Now, you can Google it and find a YouTube video on how to make one.

We learned how to make gunpowder from the encyclopedia when we were kids.

pretty sure even when Watterson wrote this Calvin could at least expect a visit from local PD

And thus Calvin was the youngest person ever to be placed on the government no-fly list.

I wonder if calls to the library can be recorded and traced. Maybe we will see law enforcement at Calvin’s home soon.

Budding Psychopath 101

Speaking of being monitored: yesterday I was looking up “clothes for Ken” for my granddaughter’s Ken doll, so she would be surprised when they come over…and today I’m inundated with adds for men’s clothing. Now that’s funny!!!

Just in, one book by a Mr. Timothy McVeigh

Worked in a print shop, where the old timers still talked about the book that came through for them to print: How To Build A Bomb. Years later, they still talked about that.

Obviously an old comic.. today that stuff is on the internet. Still back in the day firecrackers could be made into.. with a creative mind, interesting things. And kids in the country had access to.. dynamite of various grades, from stumping power to full blown hard rock mining stuff.

I used to have a copy of The Anarchist’s Cookbook… wonder what I did with it…

GoComics should not have rerun this

I wonder what happens if you try googling that information?

No Calvin, you cannot get instructions on how to make explosives……

But if you want a book for a child of your age on how to have oral sex, well that we can give you. That is perfectly fine.

Think the library called the police about this?

Heck; nowadays you can get “plans” to nuclear and thermonuclear weapons on line. The fissile material is more problematic.

Psssst Calvin… Mentos & Coke!

There is one available, but it is in Arabic.

I think it was called the Anarchists Cookbook. I built a crossbow they showed.

Some 50-60 years ago, you could get all sorts of information on explosives and how to make them for an SASE and 50¢ from the ads in comic books. Not kidding.

I can remember how disappointed I was to find out that it was easy for kids to get sulfur and charcoal but only adults could buy saltpeter.

Just try Google Calvin.

Maybe he could crumble his favorite breakfast cereal into a coffee can, put a wick in it and light it.

I’ll bet there would be a reaction.

“Mom, there’s some guys in suits coming up the driveway.”

Puff Daddy raid coming up.

Most libraries will have “The Anarchist Cookbook” in their collection, albeit, perhaps behind the desk to prevent it being stolen or checked out by surly minors.

Wait a couple of years and your phone will tell you how to do it.

Whether to place “The Anarchist Cookbook” on the shelves was always an ongoing library censorship discussion when I was a librarian. Also Mein Kampf and Madonna’s soft-core photo book.

The Anarchist’s Cookbook

The Poor Man’s James Bond vol. 1 – 3

Improvised Munitions Black Book

All avaliable when Calvin was hard at work becoming the terrorist that he clearly is destined to become.

And your welcome, now that I searched all those on Google, the FBI / CIA / DEA / ATFE / NSA / black helicopter squad will be coming for me!