Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for September 21, 2010

A cooler car is definitely in order!

GM MARG. DAD’s are meant to keep our minds active, and it’s working on Calvin

A cool car would be a give-away of his secret identity.

A black car. Yeah, and one that has Gull Wing Doors!

Oooooo!

Well! Dad’s are heroes.

A cooler car! Secret hotline!

Maybe he keeps the cooler car in his top secret lair. It is probably a racing car with a dual deck cassette player.

What’s a cassette deck again?

I love reading old comics.

When Calvin becomes a dad, he will make sure his kid doesn’t have any doubts.

Try going back to the 50’s when Chrysler Corp. put 45 RPM players in the dash. Worked great….just don’t hit a bump.

Cassette decks? What year is Calvin living in, 1989?

I guess today an uncool Dad car would be one without GPS…

Nothing dates faster more than once-trendy technology.

At six years old, most kids think their dads are very cool. At ten, dads are very old fashioned. Calvin is definitely precocious.

His cover up is that uncool looking car, Calvin!

dataweaver, the strip ran from 1985-1995.

GM Marg, Mike & Grog!

Ten years. That’s considered short-fight for a wonderful comic strip such as this!

A cool car wouldn’t be able to carry all the camping gear for next year’s vacation.

Super Dads drive minivans.

When our kid was little, he wanted to be a super hero & said “Dad, you could be my sidekick!”

“…this tape deck will self-destruct in 5 seconds….” Eek!

Today a car is uncool if it lacks an “aux in” jack for the MP3 player…

It’s a cool car when someone breaks a window from a locked car and steals the new DVD player radio. Calvin you have a great superhero imagination.

no cassette deck! how OLD is that car!

Let’s at least upgrade to a portable CD player…

agpeter, as ♠Lonewolf♠ stated, this strip ran from 1985-95. A DVD player would have been a rather new and expensive toy and I’m sure was not basic equipment in new cars….if Dad owned a new car.

Hmmm, I wonder if dad’s car has suicide doors?

Calvin didn’t need a DVD player in the car – his imagination could take him anywhere, and was more entertaining than any movie!

what in the world are suicide doors?????

otherwise known as “Calvin Overload Doors”.

I have a cassette player (combo with CD player) in my 2005 Sebring convertible (a cool car IMHO). This combo is commonly provided on their minivans. I have both tape and CD collections that I like to play in the car. I also have both cassette and CD players in my house (in my Sony component system, which also has a turntable for my vinyl collection) and in a Sony boombox. True, my kids mostly run their music from mp3 files on their iPods, but it is hard to replace large collections from scratch, and not all music has been reissued in digital format…

LeslieAnne: As women we all know what we do to suffer for fashion so I guess this is a guy’s. “Suicide Doors” are rear doors on the car that are hinged backwards in some sportier cars. The problem is that at high speeds they can open up and the passengers can fall out if not buckled, hence the name. I’ve seen them a couple times on cars and they look very cool! I like the bat wing doors but they can’t be opened when parking by a curb!

Just hope that when you go to bed dad doesn’t dress up like mom. Unless of course mom is a superhero.

calvin and i have something in common. zero form of radio entertainment.

I’m never on this early, so today I am seeing why the complaints on spammers. I have done my share, flagged the guy on 10-15 or so that I read. Usually don’t ever see them when I’m reading later in the day.

The uncool car is part of Dad’s disguise. Down in the Dad Cave lies his ultracool Superdadmobile, along with his costume, and his faithful companion, Supermom.

Dads never get to have cool cars until after the kids are on their own. Bachelor Uncles, now, they get to have all the cool stuff they want - unless they’re spending all their time and money spoiling nephews and nieces.

Calvin in Arizona the cool thing would be AC.

What’s a cassette deck?

about three generations of technology ago.

a cassette deck with auto-reverse… so very cool.

He is the Dad of Stupendous Man, after all. ;-)

When Dad hits mid 40s he’ll buy a really cool car to restore and just when it’s done, Calvin will start borrowing the keys! Tough luck Dad!

Dino 1 Thanks… I don’t understand Bat wing doors either. I’m sorry I know cars, but not car accessories! haha

There is perks for cool dudes,I think.

“Batdad”!

LeslieAnne - I think Dino1 meant gull wing doors instead of bat wing doors. Here’s a picture of gull wing doors.        

At least he did not say “8 tract” that would have really dated this strip.

You know the economy’s not heading your way when your home entertainment center is your car radio…..

Thanks Rmom… And Dino 1… I kinda prefer Lamborghini doors personally (The ONLY specialized car doors that I know! :D)

Dads do all their super-hero stuff before they come home from work.

The copyright on this strip is either 1983 or 1989; even 400% zoom level doesn’t clarify.

Suicide doors make it easier to exit from the rear seat because the door is behind you. The danger is, as correctly stated above, that if opened while moving the door would blow fully open, rather then tending to blow closed if hinged on the B-pillar.

If there’s no cassette deck, then presumably the car has an 8-TRACK player, if it doesn’t have just a radio. So named because the tape had 8 tracks of recorded information, 4 left and 4 right, and the player head moved down to play them in order. A TRACT is a piece of land or a written document.

♠Lonewolf♠: To be more specific, this particular strip ran on August 8, 1989.

Suicide doors are door that open from the front. They came out on the Lincolns years ago.

he could be like a secret penguin. Those things are so sneaky it is not even funny

LeslieAnne, Pardon me for interrupting your bubble bath! Do you have any Moose Tracks in there with you? It’s too bad that Calvin’s Dad couldn’t have been available to rescue you during your perilous adventure, but I suspect that Calvin’s imagination is running wild again, anyway. Have a restful night so you’ll be alert tomorrow when you drive the forklift truck! Don’t take any wrong turns. “One good turn deserves another!”

Rmom: “Gull wing” doors, I can see the name now from the picture. I guess they got named “bat wings” around here due to the Batman series on tv’s car. LeslieAnne: I looked up the picture of the Lamborghini doors and they’re cool too. I thought they had the “gull wing” doors too. I’ve never seen one except on television.

Its all a part of the act, calvin.

the dad isnt a masked superhero hes actully a big monster and hes nder your bed calvin hes a monster