Some books are comfort food for the heart. Just looking at them can transport you to a different time and place, and maybe even inspire a smile.
Calvin and Hobbes have that effect on me.
One of my simple pleasures, way back when, was the Sunday Tulsa World – back when it was a big, big newspaper. Size of a fireplace log. Not that it was important to strain a back picking up from the driveway, but I just remember it that way. These days the paper is considerably smaller. (Carriers probably prefer the current version.)
There were a couple of features that were always worthwhile, even when it was a slow sports week. Dave Barry’s column and Calvin and Hobbes.
More than once I had trouble getting through Mr. Barry’s column. It got to be a common practice that I would read it aloud so my wife and I could enjoy it at the same time. When Dave was hitting on all cylinders I’d be laughing so hard it was difficult to speak. It made for an uplifting way to start off the Sunday.
We both enjoyed Calvin and Hobbes, but it just wasn’t a read-out-loud feature. The fun was in the artwork. The comic strip was drawn by an artist named Bill Watterson for a ten year period beginning in late 1985. Some of you will have grown up without ever having seen it in a daily paper.
And that’s a shame. Calvin is an ornery six year old, and Hobbes is his Tiger. The trick of the feature is that – while everyone else sees Hobbes as a stuffed toy – Calvin and the readers see the tiger as a living, breathing, fun-loving sidekick.
Just like it made my Sundays, I was really tickled to come across a huge stack of the collected comic strips in paperback. Pristine copies, too.
Even though it has been years since I’ve seen them, when I flipped one over to look at the back, I immediately remembered Spaceman Spiff. You C & H fans will remember Calvin’s trips into deep space, where he assumed his alter ego.
When Mr Watterson first introduced Calvin, I wondered about the economy of his artwork. The kid’s hair is little more than a squiggled line and his mouth is usually a triangle. Working with such a simple form, I was amazed at the range of emotions that were depicted. And the background art?
Stuff worthy of framed canvas.
Mr Watterson was able to fill his Sunday comic strip with outrageous depictions of Calvin’s imagination, from dinosaurs, to space travel, to ingenious snow sculpture. (Calvin’s projects were always more than just snowmen.)
They’re priced individually, but if you’re in need of a twenty-years-later Calvin & Hobbes fix, I’ll make you such a deal on the entire lot.
Come visit!
McHuston
Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main St. Broken Arrow OK!