Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for July 18, 2010

I’d lose perspective too, Calvin.

Of course she has no perspective, she’s your mother.

Calvin, I think you’ve entered The Twilight Zone

Good Morning, Marg, Mike & ♠Lonewolf♠!

I already feel sorry for the monkeys.

GoComics,

The general concensus here is that we want Joe back.

If that is not possible, I would appreciate an explanation.

Calvin you lived in an abstract world…….Well for a moment at least.

Good Morning C&H fans.

Again I apologizefor the comment crush on Friday. I said it would just be a one-day thing and it was.

I now have 94 zip codes, thanks to the people here at C&H, 66of those zips came from you!!

I had a lot of imagination when I was young (still do) But never the caliber of Calvin’s imagination!

Thanks again LOL “=)))))

Good morning Marg! Good morning Fran and Kizzzy! Good Morning L’Wolf! Good Morning Grog! Would the Monkey House buy him?

Good morning everyone! I’m new here! Get used to me :D I remember a dream like this once. It ended too soon.

I’ve been outta town, what happened to Joe?

Hello Shirttail Slim, From Warner Robins, Ga., here is a zip, 31093.. Hope its not a duplicate.

What an amazing imagination and vocabulary! Poor Mom!!!

It’s always fun to watch how their imaginations work, that is until they start breaking stuff. I have to agree with Mom on that one. I’m so glad for the nicer weather so my granddaughter can burn up her pent up energy outside.

I wish my imagination is as great as Calvin’s.. then I’m sure life will be so much fun.. haha..

What “monkey house” is Mom referring to? Is it a direct reference to Kurt Vonnegut’s work, or just the zoo?

yeah!!! u should send her there!!!!!!!

I’ve always thought Watterson’s trippy Sunday ideas and art demonstrated the very best of his ingenuity.

This is the point where I was always told to get my butt outside and play, and don’t come back until I was called.

Johanan Rakkav, If I were Hammy the Squirrel, I think I’d go nuts! If you were a ‘raving lunatic’, you’d already have gone nuts! I dissected your comment comparing me to Digital Frog, and it leaves me like the Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County in another state where never the Twain shall meet. Mark my words! When I finally croak, I suppose my final words will be punny. As the heavenly hamburger said, “When the roll is call up yonder, I’ll be there.”

According to Watterson’s own notes on the strip, this one came about because newspaper editors were being overly critical of his drawing style. Fortunately, the popularity of C&H gave him enough clout to ignore them. A number of other Sunday strips also reflected this problem, including the one where Calvin enters a world where everything is drawn in the Cubist style..

I think Calvin and Escher would like each other.

Ok, I gotta ask, who’s Joe and what does he have to do with C&H?

Did Calvin find Dad’s college footlocker? Naw, know the imaginative child, I’d say this flashed through his mind about one second before the fall and about one and a half second before the scream.

GM Mike and Loki. GM All.

The vocabulary and imagination blow me away. Frank Loyd Wright for the Architect and furniture by Dali.

Binghamton NY, 13901, reporting in.

Puddleglum, did you ever read Piers Anthony books? They are punnier than thou!

I read C&H every day and all the messages and I still don’t know what happened to Joe.

X-D On the last panel, Mother refers that Calvin should be sent to the monkey;s house. That means Calvin should be sent to the ZOO with other crazy and freak monkeys. Or perhaps send to the mental institutuion?

LOLs!

Bellingham, WA 98229

Welcome Dominique Schmidt.

Grog, I had the same thought run through my mind. It is very much like a “Twilight Zone” kind of moment.

Woodeye, Joe has apparently been banned. I wasn’t here to read what he may have posted to get himself removed, but apparently it was bad enough to get GoComics’ attention.

Broken Arrow, OK 74012

Blue Hill, ME 04614

Oregon City, Oregon 97015

I also want to know, who is Joe?

Joe got removed from Gocomics????

I know certain comics that are actually drawn like that.

Waterloo, IA 50702

It’s great that Watterson never lost perspective of life. And I don’t think the monkeys ever did anything bad enough to deserve Calvin!

Joe posted some pretty insulting stuff over on Frog Applause - said the cartoonist “had the mindset of backwoods redneck trash”.

Moms always do.

i don’t know what joe did to get himself banned - if that is what happened. he commented regularly on many strips in the gocomics stable, but as i recall not very often on c&h. his main activity was on ginger meggs, doonesbury, baldo, barkeater lake, argyle sweater and the meaning of lila.

Joe wrote snippets about his life and thoughts that didn’t nessesarily have anything to do with the comic. Several people started heckling him and he fought back. Instead of the moderator disciplining the hecklers, he/she must have banned Joe.

Slim from where I lived many moons ago 28304

This was one of my (many) favorite strips back in the day. I had Sunday strips taped all over my walls (cheaper than buying posters!) and it was in a spot that I saw it several times a day.

Slim 48306

GweedoMurray:

Sorry, but I cannot accept this ztp. At the very beginning you were the #8 to sign on. Thanks again, though.

cleokaya:

You have the honor (?) of being the 100th person to zip me. Hmmm…. Maybe I should re-phrase that last bit. Nah. Might stoke some imaginations among the readers, good for the mind, tmagination, Sane, that is.

Extra thanks to you cleokaya.

For me Joe-Allen has been commenting far longer then I started. He talked about army days, teaching at schools, his family, and one and only. People either agreed with him or disagreed. He also commented on For Heavens Sake, where he felt he is a schollar. He would evan disagree with me. But I too had my own opionion. I won’t say where he was from but he would tell people what town and state he lived in.

Calvin you’ve had way to much of sugar booms too much energy. Wish you had friends to play with I know you love Hobbes, you need to go outside and play instead of tearing the house up.

This strip reminds me of Baby Blues when the older ones get into trouble.

I, like others, found many of Joe Doty’s comments interesting–even highly informative at times. But it was his insufferable, fault-finding criticisms of the comics themselves that rubbed some comic fans raw a few too many times. And we rightfully told him so.

That said, I’m betting it was an accumulation of complaints from the comic artists themselves that led to his finally getting himself booted out of the GoComics playground. (Bill Watterson could care less, haha).

I honestly wish Joe well wherever he ends up.

Hello All,

For Slim: Norwood, MO 65717

Calvin, your imagination is fun, but harrowing to your poor mom; give her break. Tomorrow she will learn her car is thrashed and her son is AWOL.

Wouldn’t it be COOL if gocomics had higher resolution images on Sundays?

(Sure, I know you can enlarge them with a click, but that’s not the same, the blur just gets bigger.)

(Cooler yet if they had higher resolution all 7 days too, but at least Sundays, please.)

(They could improve the color on their scanning of Calvin & Hobbes too.)

Folks, IMHO he IS back, albeit incognito. I think his comment style is fairly easy to ID. Look carefully, and you’ll find him.

Mom, Mom, Mom … you don’t have enough money to pay the zoo/monkey house people to take Calvin off your hands!!!!!

;o)

After all Calvin she is your mom . She doesn’t see your world as you and Hobbes see it. Maybe that’s a good thing if she saw Hobbes running around and heard him talking then your dad would have to comment her.And do I need to say where !

grazer wrote about 2 hours ago:

I, like others, found many of Joe Doty’s comments interesting–even highly informative at times. But it was his insufferable, fault-finding criticisms of the comics themselves that rubbed some comic fans raw a few too many times. And we rightfully told him so.

That said, I’m betting it was an accumulation of complaints from the comic artists themselves that led to his finally getting himself booted out of the GoComics playground. (Bill Watterson could care less, haha).

_I honestly wish Joe well wherever he ends up. _

As I noted elsewhere, I got an e-mail (yesterday, I think) from Joe-Allen “Joe” Doty. The title had to do with comments on GoComics. I chose not to open or answer it, not wanting a debate with him on yet another level. In the light of what I’ve seen written here today, I wonder if maybe I should have.

Also in the light of a citation or two of Joe’s comments on GoComics today, I suspect the banning was more than justified.

To say no more than I must, I believe he was his own worst enemy socially and well and truly earned his banning, not just because of comments to the artists, but to some of his fellow posters. On the other hand, there were times when he was lucid, witty and, on rare occasions, surprisingly compassionate and empathetic.

Only recently did something click in my mind that made it a lot easier to sympathize with Joe and forgive him for his quirks. I realized that from all the signs, he’s what students of Jungian personality type would call an INTP. The order and roles of his thought processes fits. People of that type do find it harder than most to relate socially, although Joe seems to have been a fairly extreme case.

I wish him well too, but he didn’t earn a very long list of hecklers and even opponents here for nothing. And that saddens me.

Joe seems to have been a repeatedly warned offender.

I note that he has not been banned totally: his profile page is still up, and, after the last sequence of posts on Monday, July 12, he did post on Friday, July 16. (although that was also removed)

He may have caused more problems at some comic comments than others. I noticed that on some pages he seemed more tedious than aggressive, while on others he was more aggressive, even shading into abuse at times. And in generally he seemed to get more aware of the slightest hint of attacks, whether or not they were intended.

I’m a huge Calvin and Hobbes fan even though I’m only 16. I wish Bill Watterson would go back to it :( I have the books, my favorite is Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat.

Hi bmonk,

Yes, I learned elsewhere about the other nickname, earlier this afternoon. Thanks for the tip-off.

Rachel17: It’s hard to pick a favorite C&H book, but I love that title and the one I’m now forgetting about weird aliens from another planet. (You see, I’m not an owner, but a browser, of the books.) Bill W., on top of everything else, knew how to pick great titles for his books.

HEY, what happened to the busted-car story?!?!? i wanted to see what happens next. :(

Sunday strips are always out of the current story arc. It will be back tomorrow.

Johanan maybe you should have read that email. I think if he didn’t feel attacked all the time, and yes, he brings a lot on himself, I know, but I think deep down, he is a very kind hearted, misunderstood person. And you must admit, even when he’s done nothing wrong or offensive, some still go after him. Even when he was gone, there were still rude and nasty comments made. He has health issues, what’s the excuse for just being plain vicious? And I’m not referring to you, johanan.

With all his knowledge, how doe she not do well on tests?

Glad to help Shirttail Slim.

Laurelville, OH 43135

The darker colors on Sunday make it harder to read the strip. Will this criticism get us banned? Joe regularly commented on Gasoline Alley and I don’t remember anything offensive enough to be banned. There are others still there that insult the cartoonist regularly.

Many bright children cannot do well on traditional paper and pencil tests. I’m surprised they haven’t put him on Ritalin yet. But what would the strip be about then?

Linda Arney, I have not read any of Piers Anthony’s books. I’m not a science fiction fan. I read one of his newsletters. It was lengthy, but I didn’t see much that was punny.

My favorite C&H book is the three-volume The Complete Calvin and Hobbes. With that on my shelf, I don’t need any others.

Calvin pay attention ,she said the monkey house. It dont get worse than this.

Slim, got one for ya, 76354, Texas-home APO AE-09393-Iraq-current duty station