Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for December 29, 2024

Some people don’t care as long as they live another year.

And this time of year it’s a Christmas present…..

Watterson displaying his misanthropy again.

Very wise observation, Hobbes. BTW, do you realize that the 21st century is almost 1/4 OVER?!?! How time flies!

Why would Calvin make resolutions for himself? How could he possibly improve?

It would be nice if we could channel all our stupidity into a non-election year.

Tell me, Calvin—did Dad tell you that pollution, war, and greed build character?? Forget about resolutions; he’ll be the same jerk he always was!

The Tiger Philosopher strikes again!

And here we are Calvin.

I’m doing away with resolutions. I have set goals instead. If I don’t achieve a goal within the year, at least I will have made good progress on it and can continue until I achieve it.

We keep getting all these new years, but Calvin never gets any older. Some other things have changed, though.

Humans put about 40 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere this year

There were 11 hurricanes this year (the average is 7)

Of those, 5 were major hurricanes (the average is 3)

Donald Trump was elected president of the United States

The sweep second hand on my clock fell off.

Sadly, this is another cynical strip whose cynicism is still justified thirty years later.

Calvin views the world through thermonuclear narcissism and entitlement, but via his voice – which we enjoy chuckling at – Watterson made important points. The things Calvin enumerated still exist, and they have indeed gotten worse. Even those of good will, humanity, and common sense who worked hard for the last four years to try to turn the rising tide of authoritarianism and kakistocracy in our country were unable to fend off a return to Trumpism. I see the message here not as misanthropy but as a clarion call to remember that human progress through history has never been a straight upward line on the graph. There have been severe setbacks, but not unlike index funds, if you take the long view the trend continues to rise. We must keep fighting for humanity, and keep trying to make a difference wherever we can. I have faith that reason will prevail over stupidity.

So true and so sad.

Even though this was originally dated 1994, now, 30 years later, does anybody think the future has gotten better from 30 years ago?

There is no past present or future. There is only the now.

While peoples is complains why world ain’t changing to be better, them same peoples will not does much to makes it a better place themselfs. For example Calvin complaining about stupidity and greed despite he being too conceited himself.

I consider myself to be an educated person but, there are so many words with so many letters in them in the comments today today, it makes my head spin. The message seems pretty clear to me, mankind has not, is not and will never be without our bad side.

Some people just refuse to change… In fact, I’m looking at one of them right now!

And it will do so presently, Calvin.

As Solzhenitsyn observed, good and evil do not reside in systems, political or social, but in each and every human heart.

Let’s go Back to the Future!

Very well said, Hobbes. A thoughtful tiger? Who’dathunkit?

Sadly still true

To think today is the tomorrow we thought about yesterday.

Maybe someday Calvin will look back at this year as “the good old days”.

Don’t tell Calvin that 30 years later, we still don’t have flying cars…

I’ve given up thinking the world will get any better outside technology. Even if robots ran it instead of humans, they’d still find ways to screw things up

How profound for a stuffed tiger!

Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’. Into the fuuuuture……..

……..the past is already gone, and the future is yet to come… there is only one moment for me to live… The present moment. Rejoice in the things that are present; all else is beyond thee.

The problem with the future is it ain’t what it used to be.

The writing is SO good!

How many years ago did this strip first appear? Certainly has not aged…

We’re going to wish this upcoming new year were more like the old one.

The future is now.

A very appropriate strip which reflects the mood of the majority of the Western World.

Infact we’re not even stationary. We’re going backwards by approx 4 years and still denying climate change.

Calvin’s still 3 feet tall.

We must learn from the past not to repeat it, even if we only learn from our own past. Happy New Year

Actually, they aren’t the same, they’re getting worse.

Cheer up, Calvin. Things are going to start getting a LOT better starting January 20th. God Bless America!

DECADES seem to be the same. We’ve been talking about the same issues since at least the ‘70’s.

Or to put it another way; “Today is the tomorrow we worried about yesterday.”

I suspect the next four years will be different from just about any of the years we’ve seen before, and it won’t be good.

I think Watterson is just expressing his usual witty humor the human condition

Wow. A prescient comic from the 80s. AND SADLY TRUE!!!

“Your mileage (and smileage) will vary.”

Aside from all the borderline political commentary (which, according to the GoComics TOS, you’re not supposed to engage in), I noticed something else about Watterson’s style in today’s comic.

In the early days of this strip, he was forced to comply with the then-standard practice of having the first “row” of a Sunday edition be droppable by those papers that wanted the extra space to fit more comics on the page, but it was supposed to still tie in to the lower two rows. (Eventually, Watterson developed enough clout to not have to comply, and papers had to run the whole Sunday comic, which no longer conformed to the “three row” format.)

But, when forced to comply, his top row tended to be written in a way that it could have easily stood alone as a regular strip.

The man was a genius.

Still relevant.

This strip is as spot on as it was when it was produced in 1994, exactly 30 years ago.

And of course, Calvin is just standing around complaining about it instead of doing whatever he can, no matter how small, to make things a little better, thereby illustrating why things don’t change for the better.

I understand, Calvin. I feel the same way!

No doubt Hobbes, true dat! ;-)

It doesn’t get better on its own, Calvin. It’s up to us, because we’re all there is.

And now were looking at another 4 years of bad luck.

The Future is Now !

At this point, I am apathetic about the future. Now I prefer staying in the present since nothing seems to change no matter how much good I do.

I want to fly like an Eagle…

The warnings have been out since the 1970’s but nobody is listening.