Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for January 16, 2010

I dunno, sounds pretty good to me…

I want to hear more about the evil patent infringement in Fig. 2.

I don’t have time to tell you a story now!

Castfish Stevens? Tea for the Tillerman? Something reminds me of a father always putting off his son’s affection and desire for attention. Catfish… is that it…uug.

Pacejv : you’re thinking of “Cat’s in the Cradle” by Harry Chapin. Not a fair comparison to Calvin’s dad, who seems to do a very good job given the difficulty of dealing with … well, with Calvin.

Pacejv, ‘morning! It’s Cat Stevens. You’re thinking of ‘Cat’s in the Cradle’ by Harry Chapin.

Wait Calvin, Dad’s about to get to the good part now.

Well, I think we can guess what Calvin’s going to be when he grows up…a professional blackmailer.

didn’t Tim “the Tool Man” Taylor do a version of that story once?

O(∩_∩)O哈哈~

Fun fact: Bill Watterson made Calvin’s father a patent lawyer, not wanting him to have a generic white-collar job.

Rayannina and Marg…Thank you,so much,…driving me crazy.I am going through old 33’s hunting…I have records of both…tonight I can sleep.

I think Calvin should stick to the story he made up.

yyyguy I think it was Dick Louden. Tim Taylor can’t write anything but blank pages.

I agree, I always thought Dad was telling a pretty good story. (“The evil patent infringement.” Love it!)

Well, now we know Calvin has a typical Dad and he really sucks. Been there, gone through that. Off you Dad.

I want a good story!

hit caliven with phone!!! caliven:wa wa WA!!!!!

This reminds of a MASH episode, where the orphans spend a night at the 4077, Colonel Potter reads a little boy to sleep with an army manual.

MASH is a favorite of mine.

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“good” story.. why don’t you give your dad some specifications Calvin…

For Pacejv

Castfish Stevens? Tea for the Tillerman? Something reminds me of a father always putting off his son’s affection and desire for attention.

You’re probably thinking of Cat Stevens’ “Father and Son” from “Tea for the Tillerman”. A moving generational song, one of my favorites (that could be due to my blonde friend who played her guitar and sang it so nicely).

is Calvin trying to prepare his dad for the destruction which awaits at home from yesterday’s strip?

Pacejv:

You are definitely thinking of Harry Chapin’s “Cat’s in the Cradle.”

Chapin wrote a lot of unbelievably depressing songs and that one was the bane of every dad’s existence for a while.

My property professor tells us stories about “buyer A” “buyer B” and the “evil seller” Evil seller always gets away with it.

that’s what i was thinking musmo, was getting ready to phrase it when i read yours ya beat me

i remember a strip where cal was talking to dad and he was too bussy so cal hung up …then the strip whows the living room flooding.

It’s definitely because of the mess he made yesterday. He’s waiting for mom to come home and kill him so he thought he’d get one more story out of dad before he dies.

It was Cats in the Cradle by Harry Chapin, Cat Stevens with Tea and the Tillerman and it was Catfish Hunter, the pitcher with the Oakland A’s. The 70’s were a confusing time…..

yes, but then catfish hunter signed with the yankees and got paid a lot of money and then he ignored his kid ….. and cat stevens gave up music and became a muslim and when the aytollah said that salman rushdie should die for writing a book he disargreed with, cat said that if thats what the aytollah said then rushdie SHOULD be killed. so cat was so busy with that stuff he ignored HIS kid and then…..

Dad,I need my quality time with you.Well,either that or ten bucks.

… Nice try Dad give in and find away to keep working! Forgo the “good” story for a good story about how to deal with your kids because someday you’ll be on the receiving end of this same phone-call Calvin.

Sidebar: Too bad we’ll never get to see those days because in our world Calvin will forever be that little boy with his stuffed tiger. Hmm? I wonder how a new strip titled Pay’n for your Raise’n would fair…

If there is any one child that doesn’t need a story, it is Calvin. With his imagination he, as an adult, is probably a famous author of fiction.

Or a folk singer who becomes a one-hit wonder… and we’ve come full circle.

The chilling story ends when the Cotter Pin (fig.8) pierces the Winged Spacer Nut (fig.9) with a resounding…..CLICK!

Calvin wants a GOOD story, not an EVIL patent infringement story. Isn’t it patently obvious?

I’m just wondering how and why Calvin is still alive after yesterday’s episode in the living room?

What’s really weird is I just sold 10 hydraulic pumps last week!!!

sigh In my day, NO child would ever have been allowed to call his/her parent at work just because he or she was bored and wanted some attention. I, for example, tried that stunt exactly once, when I was around Calvin’s age, and I caught hell from my mother for bothering my father at work!

Unfortunately, Calvin just doesn’t get that the universe does not revolve around him, and that it does not exist solely for the purpose of entertaining and amusing him. In my opinion, rather than letting Calvin guilt him into giving him his way, Dad should have made it clear that, unless it’s a life-or-death emergency, phone calls to Dad’s office during working hours are forbidden – and then hung up immediately. Perhaps then Calvin would get the message that other people have needs and obligations, too – and that they don’t always necessarily have anything to do with him.

This is just about the best Dad ever bothered to do by Calvin.

So many of you still fail to grasp even the basic concept of Calvin and Hobbes. You are so hopelessly old and lost, like the irrelevant diatribe above.

If you still don’t see that you should root for Calvin, you should really find another comic strip, or better yet, switch to editorials, or staring at the wall.

Calvin is 100% perfect. He is an introvert, and is highly intelligent, and highly imaginative. He is the hero of the story. Everyone else is an antagonist. He’s 6, not 30. He will always only be 6. Nothing about him needs to be fixed. Those suggesting it don’t know this strip at all. You would do well to have a Calvin of your own. You’d know he would grow up pretty well off, unlike people who have to psycho analyze a cartoon child, instead of think like one, and who make anti-protagonist suggestions to a 24 year old comic strip that had a perfect run, and is next to only Peanuts in popularity.

Mum its this way Dad was telling me a boring story so I started a ball game with Hobbes. We got carried away in the heat of the second inning Hobbes is always getting me in trouble

@legaleagle48-

I know there’s only about 150 or so people that use the internet but PLEASE don’t tell my you’re the same “legaleagle” douc*e from ksl.com? That would be a horrible coincidence.

That aside, mrslukeskywalker has the whole situation exactly right. Calvin is definitely (as the term said) the “hero” of the story. Calvin’s alter-ego Spaceman Spiff is a more literal embodiment.

An additional point being though…Calvin’s parents are dealing imperfectly…with a (to quote again) “perfect” child. It can be argued that ALL children are perfect and this state of being is only modified by their environment projecting imperfections on them (us).

Long story short…Calvin is “any” child and to give his parents credit…they seem to perform above average in, if not nurturing, then at least loving him.

dkram: thank you for refreshing my memory. the MASH episode was the one i had in mind.

I can’t believe people take their comics so seriously. Calvin is supposed to make us laugh. We all should have a Hobbes to tell our troubles to.

I would love to be able to go back 25 years into the past for just one hour so I could read my girls a story again.

True story: When I was 10 I discovered that stomach cramps could be used as an excuse for my parents to allow me to miss school. I faked the ‘problem’ once too often, however, and they whisked me off to see our family doctor. He asked a few questions and diagnosed my condition as appendicitis. The appendix, he explained was a useless body part but if it ruptured could present a serious priplem. Treatment? Have an appendectomy, ‘tout de suite.’ So off they took me to the hospital and out came the offending body part. Afterward the doctor told my parents that it showed no sign of inflamation, but it was “probably good to have it out, since it might be a problem sometime in years to come!”

There was a silver lining, however. Whlie recuperating at home, I begged my dad to read to me, something that I really enjoyed. He agreed on condition that he could choose what to read. I agreed, and he came back with a copy of Jules Verne’s ‘Les Miserables’ [in two volumes, yet!] He read to me each day for a week or so, until I was ready to go back to school, then said that if I wanted to know how it all came out I could read the rest of the book myself!

I was so interested by that time, that I finished it and in doing so realized what an incredibly good book it was. I’ve read the entire book several times since then and now consider it the best novel ever written! The experience also taught me a valuable lesson about the pitfalls of telling lies. Maybe there’s hope for Calvin, yet.

you’ll never get a good story out of him

I’m sorry, but I believe that ‘Les Miserables’ was written by ‘Victor Hugo’, not ‘Jules Verne’. Perhaps you were thinking of “20,000 Leagues Under The Sea”. (Pitfalls)

Or, you were just checking to see if any one was awake.

BTW There is no hope for Calvin, otherwise the strip would have failed many years ago.

I have a little Calvin at home and I totally empathize with his parents. A little Calvin drains you completely. You try your best to keep patient but these children are on from daylight to night-time without a break. It is amusing that Calvin is unconventional, combative, demanding and imaginative. I chuckle at many of these cartoons! I love my daughter very much but I also wish for quiet days without struggles, non-stop talking, complaining that everything is so boring (school and mealtimes). She’s constantly in her imagination. I believe I’m a good mother but I get overwhelmed at times.

All children act like Calvin -sometimes-…that’s what made Calvin so universally popular; he speaks to that inner 6 year old in us all.

yyyguy: Glad I could help.

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My parents always told me real stories about themselves and our family. They had enough material there to never have to make anything up. I recently received the picture album my Mom had that belonged to her mother. I saw alot of pictures that brought my grandparents stories to life again. They had the first car in town and would pick up their family and anyone else that could fit in and hang on to the running board on their way to church. My great grandmother and great grandfather had 16 children and brought them up in the “Great Depression”. They literally lived off the land and my grandmother said their house smelled wonderful. They canned all their fruits and vegetables which they stored in the root cellar. They smoked their own meats too. My grandmother’s favorite smell though was the smell of the 25 loaves of freshly baked bread they made everyday. They were all taught to make their own clothes. Every child had their assigned tasks to help out with the running of the household, farmland, and animals. My grandmother was trained in helping to deliver babies and would stay on with the families to assist with the baby and to help with the cooking and cleaning until the mother was strong enough to take over again. She had her own money as she says and she was expected and happy to contribute to the running of her parents household. To my delight growing up there was always a relative staying with my grandparents so there was never a shortage of stories.

“The patent infringement walked on down the hall … And he came to a door …. ‘Father, I want to …’ ”

I liked that comment on wanting to go back 25 years to read a story to your girls. My toddlers are coming back home to daddy after being away for 5months for the birth of their newest sibling. My world is going to turn upside down, and inside out. I’ll try to remember that in 25 yrs I’ll want to come back here, but ONLY for an hour!

What six-year-old wouldn’t want a story about patents?

Thanks everyone. This episode brought a lot of people to pour out feelings.

i want to hear that story

Cognizant, you have a well-deserved name. Yes, Victor Hugo wrote “Les Miserable” and not Jules Verne. Don’t know where my mind was when I made that goof. Verne wrote some good adventure and SF stories, but they’re not in a class with Les Miserable.

You’ve got him on the run again, Calvin!

Cognizant, your name is very appropriate. You’re absolutely correct, ‘Les Miserable’ was indeed written by Victor Hugo. My brain, what there is of it, must have gone to sleep when I was typing that last post. Jules Verne wrote some very good adventure-fantasy stories, but none of them come close to ‘Les Miserable.’

Bandz, the same thing could happen to anyone, especially to those who read a lot. I too believe “Les Miserables” is in a class by itself, and you’re right, Jules Verne did write some very good stuff, and they can all be read over & over with much enjoyment. (Maybe every couple years).

I’m sorry if I came off a little too critical before. :)

pretty smart dad,taking care of two problems at once.

My parents tell pathetic stories like this, only even MORE boring.

Ummmmm what’s a patent infrigment and why is it evil