Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for May 25, 2012

It’s not the thing, it’s the use of the thing, Calvin. (And it’s not how much but in what direction, Hobbes.)

Love Hobbes’ expression in the last panel. :-)

So, did you put it to use in the political arena?

Love your Icon.Did weasel’s rip your flesh ??

Me too. I had my own chair in the office.

I should have tried that. It would have saved me SO MUCH time sitting in class …

That’s like book reports — they teach kids to hate reading! (Not EVERYTHING in a book has to have a deep, hidden meaning!!)

Stick to your guns, Calvin. It will be great practice for when you run for office.

Click here: Peanuts (1971)Click here: Peanuts (1977: 7/7/77)

In the two Peanuts strips above, note that the panels in the first one, from 1971, are not as tall as in the second one, from 1977. If Charles Schulz had drawn the second strip in 1971, Snoopy’s paper wouldn’t have been able to fly as high out of the typewriter. The panels in Calvin and Hobbes are even taller than in either Peanuts strip, which is fortunate because they often contain a whole lot of text, like in today’s strip.

kids should be encouraged to use their imaginations, but not to get too far out-of-the-box when they’re six years old.

Today’s Calvin and Hobbes strip is a good example of why Bill Watterson only drew about eight years’ worth of original material (ten years minus two sabbaticals), before he retired because he didn’t have much more to say.Watterson says so much in four panels and gives the reader so much to think about: excessive structure causing kids to hate writing assignments (panel 1), rigidity and grade pressure stifling creativity (panel 2), the fact that the creative process can actually be fun (panel 3), the importance of focusing on the fun when writing at a young age — perhaps also a reminder to teachers and administrators (panel 3), the difficult balance between being highly creative and conforming to the expectations of others (panel 4), and finally, two punch lines (panel 4).

I see a Steven King success story in the making

Poor Calvin. So young to be facing what all creative people face daily……….

Yet another Author Tract by Watterson (one which, as a teacher myself, I agree with more than disagree). I wonder how Calvin would do in a Sudbury School setting, where they just let you loose to do whatever…

You’re not alone.

You are so right!!

You are so right!!

I always got in trouble for writing too long a story or too long a paper. It took years to learn how to say things succinctly—90% of which was learning that longer is not better.

..I had one as well! Once a week, (Friday afternoon, usually) an essay question based upon SOMETHING we had worked on that week (usually a quote from Shakespeare)…really made you learn how to think on your feet, which, I believe, was the real exercise, as well as knowing the structure of a proper essay…

Calvin is in training for a Project Engineering career. Today, he calls it “rules how to do it, breathing down your neck”. Later, the processes will be known as “6 Sigma, Kaizan Event, Quality Control”. “Grades” will be replaced by a paycheck. The good news is, you still have a choice. If these elementary exercises bother you, don’t waste your money on college, it only gets worse.

its wrong to be sent to office for being cratetive

A few years ago we saw an episode of “This Old House” where they were showing how hard it was to break various window materials (glass, plexiglass, etc.). The next week my son’s second grade teacher had students write a poem about something, so my son wrote about smashing windows, obviously based on the TV show. A very good poem for a 7 year old, by the way. But instead of a good grade, the school psychologist called us in for a meeting, worried about whether this otherwise model student was some kind of incipient psychopath.

In that environment, Calvin would live his entire life in the psychologist’s office, just for doing his homework.

From Emo Phillips:

“So I went to the principal’s office and he told me I’d have to see the school psychologist. And I said, ‘Ha! Why should I have to see the school psychologist?’ and that’s when he showed me the petition…”

All of my essays turned into scifi stories. Did you know Lennie from “Of Mice and Men” was actually a science experiment gone wrong? Or, that Jim from “Huck Finn” was an alien trying to find his crashed spaceship? My teacher was surprised to learn this, too. (If you’re gonna look for allegory, might as well look in your imagination. Calvin would agree.

it’s hard to focus on punctuation when you have an allosaurus chasing you.

I just looked at your bio and figured out why UClick had it in for you. Boat rocker!

Awwwwww, Poor Calvin,

LOVE Hobbes’ face in the last panel.

LOL xxx

I remember going to the school psychologist when I was in the 5th grade or so. Her name was Mrs. Witt. Now there’s a piece of massive irony. They made me stay back a year. How does a little kid manage to tell teachers and other adults that they’re dealing with an active alcoholic parent, and shouldn’t be regarded as deficient?

@citizen GROG: I often put off my writing until after midnight — when the new Calvin and Hobbes strip appears.By the way, are you “citizen GROG” as opposed to “prehistoric GROG?”

“Whatsoever your hand finds to do, do it with your might…”Unfortunately for Calvin, the assignment of the story was found for him.

Obviously Calvin’s in a way more advanced 1st grade class than I was all those years ago because I don’t remember ever being assigned classwork at that age like he gets!

Inspiration is overrated when it comes to writing. An author I know says that, for a professional, you simply make time to write, and when you sit at the keyboard, you WRITE. Not ponder about what to write, not edit your material or what you wrote yesterday.

.

If you are not inspired, you still write about the topic—and within a short time, your brain kicks in, and you begin writing the good stuff. Then, later, when it’s time to edit, you cut away the trash (it’s obvious what is trash), replace if necessary, and it works.

Just try a little bit of fun,not a lot.

@GretchensMom: Yes, I saw your posting. Glad you got it to work. Also went back to the day before and saw your test message.Let’s see……… tomorrow I’ll check to see whether you got this message……….

The ability to put things in logical order and to state that logical ordering clearly is the real intent. Unfortunately, learning that skill is not to learn how to put truth value into the contents.

[Snerk!]

Love this one.

Hi Alain. I’m glad you enjoy the strips, and I’ll be happy to add the full dates. I’ll do the months in words, since not every country writes the numbers for the month and day in the same order.Today’s strip with Sally was from September 6, 1971. I listed 7/7/77 for the Snoopy strip because of the novelty of the date. That’s a case where obviously the order doesn’t matter.

@Alain: Here are the dates for the other strips that I posted this week:Sunday: Pearls Before Swine, 3/5/06Tuesday: Peanuts, 6/5/58Wednesday: Peanuts (Linus), 2/15/53. Wednesday: Peanuts (Snoopy), 7/13/94Thursday: Peanuts, 5/19/71

@Alain: To get the original dates of the Calvin and Hobbes strips for the past few months (since the sabbatical reruns ended), subtract 20 years and 3 days. So today’s strip was originally published May 22, 1992.

PixieJane: I’d LOVE to read that!

I wish you’d fought that grade and suspension! So you were punished for writing the creative story they asked you to write. And they say politics is confusing!