Calvin and Hobbes: A Boy and an Ontology of a Stuffed Tiger

Calvin and Hobbes is a comic strip by Bill Watterson revolving around a lovable but mischievous six-year-old boy named Calvin (after the protestant theologian of Geneva, John Calvin) and his real-only-to-him stuffed tiger named Hobbes (from the Leviathan writer Thomas Hobbes) started in 1985 and ended in 1995.

I had my first encounter with Calvin and Hobbes in 2015 -- 30 years after the first release. It is incredibly entertaining, heartwarming, and impressively substantial. Comic strips might be considered as "low brow"; but with his extraordinary storytelling ability, Bill Watterson elevated this medium with profoundness, blurring the distinction between "high brow" and "low brow". Reading Calvin and Hobbes, at some point, makes me stop and think. The first and probably the only time for me pondering when reading comics.

Unlike superhero or any other comic characters, Calvin is not exceptional in any way, he's not really put together, emotionally stable, or confident; he’s not even close to having it all figured out. He’s a very complicated but all the same ingenuous figure; Calvin and the supporting characters feel alive. They are real people - messy, frustrating, clever, surprising, contradictory, needy, and sometimes sensible. This is exactly what other comics seems to be lacking: realness and ubiquity. Calvin is very relatable and the story is simply about him growing up as a child with innocent but accurate perspectives -- this is just a story about Calvin working through his own thoughts and emotions towards life. Calvin's innocence is then tempered by Hobbes sensibility and wisdom which to me is honest and charming. It is in some strips profound work of art with highly philosophical points, and in some others just plainly fun without any philosophical value whatsoever.

The sad truth is that the worlds Calvin dreamt up were always livelier than the dull world he was supposed to live in. What's sadder is Hobbes is probably just an imaginary friend for Calvin to feel less lonelier. Nevertheless, Calvin's life is ample of fun and adventures. When life is boring, bland, and often cynical, Calvin has his own ways to make the most of it. Calvin and Hobbes stories are optimistic; it's contagious, I can’t help but smile reading it. I seem to forget what it is like to be a grown up with Calvin and Hobbes; it is a reminder for us of the enthusiasm and innocence we once had as a child that maybe faded away as we grow up; it reminds us that life was always good in its simplicity when we were a child, if at least only for a while, when we had limitless imagination at hand. What’s lost in the transition to adulthood might be regained by embracing a similar mindset shown in Calvin and Hobbes.

This post is a bagatelle of my penchant for Calvin and Hobbes. I'd like for you guys to see some of my favorite strips from the comic I love, but still these will not resemble its greatness as a whole, you must read all of them (feel free to contact me if you want). I present to you, my personal selection of Calvin and Hobbes (to be read on landscape mode - click the image if it's not big enough):

The boy and his dad

The Nature

The Raccoon

Life is precarious

Tinged with Philosophy

This comic strip invokes the moral philosophy, or lack thereof, of Niccolo Machiavelli who is famous for saying that rulers should not consider traditional ethical concerns, and instead focus on the maintenance of their power.

An open ended question. Is Calvin implying that nothing we do actually matters, or is he merely trying to help us understand their relative place in the universe?