Welcome to my new blog. For some time now, I've wanted to open up a site dedicated to commentary on the most wonderful (in my opinion) comic strip ever published, Calvin and Hobbes. Only recently, though, did I stumble upon the missing ingredient to make the project possible: a complete online archive of the strip. With that in hand, I'm ready to begin. So again, welcome!
Why dedicate a blog to commentary on Calvin and Hobbes? For one thing, Bill Waterson's strip is one of only two works for the printed page that consistently makes me laugh out loud. (The other is P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves stories.) It's simply fun to spend time with something funny.
As fans of the strip already know, though, Calvin and Hobbes isn't just funny; it's poignant, whistful, at times clumsy and preachy, and at moments it touches something of the essence of boyhood. Maybe girlhood, too, but I wouldn't really know. In any case, there's nuance in Calvin and Hobbes that still captures my interest.
Mostly, though, I want to write about Calvin and Hobbes because the strip is alive. Fifteen years after the last strip appeared--buried beneath news of an incoming Republican Congress, an odd little investigation called Whitewater, and a new computer program called "Netscape Navigator"--there is still life and vitality in the world it creates, long after the seemingly substantial "real world" of those current events dissolved, never to be recovered. I still enjoy spending time in that world, and I suspect others might, too.
A word about format: I envision posting once a week or so, choosing a strip from the 10-year canon that strikes my fancy, for one reason or another. The major service of this site, I imagine, will be to offer a regular dose of a great piece of art (I hope that doesn't sound pretentious, but I really do believe the strip rose to that level). For each posting, I'll offer a bit of commentary on the featured strip--or perhaps not. We'll see.
However this blog develops, we'll at least have delightful fellow travelers.
--Christian
Sure a comic strip can be great art! (Isn't there a Calvin and Hobbes about that?)
ReplyDeleteGreat blog.