The Indispensable CALVIN AND HOBBES by Bill Watterson

WHO'S WHO?

Hobbes

Calvin

 Calvin is the main character in the comic strip. He is worse than the typical six-year-old; his grades are terrible in school and he never listens to anything anybody says. He always wears his red and black striped shirt with his black pants. His best friend is Hobbes, his stuffed animal. While Calvin sees Hobbes as his best friend, his parents and his classmates see him as an inanimate stuffed toy who takes a ride in the washer machine for a bath. It's almost like Hobbes is Calvin's imaginary friend, except he's not imaginary- he's just a stuffed animal.

Calvin's parents

Susie Derkins

Calvin's mom and dad are unnamed in the strip and their purpose is to raise Calvin. They put up with his outlandish behavior and build up his character. Calvin's father is an attorney while his mom is a stay-at-home parent. Besides Hobbes, Susie Derkins appears frequently in the comic. She lives on the same street as Calvin and is also in his class. They are always fighting and though neither of them will admit it, they like each other and have a lot in common.

Rosalyn

Because Calvin is such a menace, the only person that will babysit Calvin is Rosalyn. She takes advantage of his parents and asks for more money than necessary but she is the only character in the strip that Calvin really fears.
There are other characters that appear occasionally in the strips like Moe, the bully who picks on Calvin. There is also Miss Wormwood, Calvin's teacher, and Mr. Spittle, the principal, whom he is often threatened to go see by Miss Wormwood.   

THIS IS WHAT HOBBES REALLY LOOKS LIKE...

Example of a color strip

 Hobbes appears to be a real tiger in the first panel when Calvin is the only one around but as soon as Susie appears, Hobbes turns into an inanimate character that can't even stand up straight.

WHAT IS IT ALL ABOUT?

This graphic novel is a compilation of daily strips that range in length. Watterson refers to it as a "Calvin and Hobbes Treasury". While some strips are only four panels long, others are two pages long. Some strips are also printed in color while the majority remain in black and white. The main storyline is about a precocious and adventurous six-year-old boy named Calvin and his stuffed tiger named Hobbes. Calvin constantly pushes everyone's buttons and knows no boundary. He is always doing something that he should not be doing, making Hobbes his partner in crime. Although Hobbes is always caught in the act with Calvin, he is much more rational and aware of the consequences, he just never interferes with Calvin's mayhem. But behind the humor of the strips, Bill Watterson reveals modern, everyday morals and the reoccurring theme of mischief.

SEE WHAT I MEAN? ALWAYS PUSHING BUTTONS!

Calvin's father wanted to take a picture for their Christmas card but just before the count of three, Calvin made an ugly face - a typical Calvin move. It went on like this for twenty minutes until the camera ran out of film.

Calvin woke his mother up in the middle of the night just to ask a question about spores.

Example of 2-page long strip

Strip continued from left

 

Calvin decided is was a good idea to take Rosalyn's notes and "flush them down the toilet". He didn't end up doing it, he just wanted to stay up until his parents came home for once. But, he fell for Rosalyn's trick of calling the fire department and he opened the bathroom door. Rosalyn caught him and sent him to bed. Calvin and Hobbes only ended up staying up a half hour than usual... and his parents had to pay her more for her troubles since she didn't get to study.

Calvin sprayed his mom with the hose as she walked out the door after getting ready to go out. He had no idea why she got so mad either.

EVERY DAY MORALS YOU ASK?

 Bill Watterson expresses the maturity of Calvin's brain and includes sophisticated thoughts and morals of every day life:

 What if you really do become famous? The public is going to know all about your boring life. Why not have fun and make a difference all the time? Do what makes you happy.

 

DOLT is a stupid person: Watterson reveals Calvin's sophisticated vocabulary.

 Although Calvin is just thinking about himself, he - or Watterson - has a point. While you're out  doing what you have to, let others just sit around and argue about  whether it's right or not. They're the ones that are going to miss out.

USING MCCLOUD AS A GUIDE,

I noticed that the individual panels represent different sequential patterns. While some strips depict action-to-action, others depict subject-to-subject. Very rarely, Watterson will add non-sequitur panels but they do appear in his work. For example, on page 37, Calvin is building snowmen. Then, all of a sudden, the last panel shows an entire city running away from a gigantic dinosaur.

Action-to-Action

Subject-to-Subject

 The words and pictures go together perfectly. The pictures phenomenally portray the dialogue in the speech bubbles. Although there are several panels without words, words are not needed to understand what is happening. And the panels with the words do not dominate over the drawings; there is an equal representation of art and language. Each picture and speech bubble remains in the panel except in one strip. Calvin is playing baseball against baseball and to represent the continuous action, Watterson draws "outside of the box".

Represents a continuous action

The drawing are very simple and do not contain a backdrop or background. Watterson strictly depicts the actions taking place between the characters and does not include a great deal of detail into the background. The audience does not need to pay attention to the background- it's in the back for a reason. He also varies the size of the panels which keeps it interesting with no exact uniform. What he does keep consistent is the gutter between panels (the eighth of an inch space cushion between panels). Watterson approached Calvin and Hobbes in cartoon form but it was the best direction to take. The cartoon characters allow an informal manner where jokes are applicable and allow Calvin to say whatever comes to mind without thinking beforehand.

OTHER ART FROM THE TIME

During the time that Watterson was originating Calvin and Hobbes, Jim Davis was creating Garfield and Charles M. Schulz was creating Peanuts. All three competed for popularity in the 80's and 90's but both Calvin and Hobbes and Peanuts were similar in design. They were both formatted into four-panel molds and after time, the panels changed in size slightly horizontally and slightly vertically too. Peanuts had been around longer than Calvin and Hobbes (1950) and unfortunately, pulled ahead of Calvin and Hobbes and remained "the most popular comic of all time". Both comic artists were very successful though.

IT'S CRITIQUING TIME!

WHAT WORKS AND WHAT DOESN'T

Overall, I enjoyed reading Bill Watterson's work. The illustrations were done beautifully and much of the dialogue was comical with subliminal meanings. I even folded down the corners of the pages where I laughed out loud so I could go back and read them again. There was one day when I took the train back to school. I took out my headphones and my comic book and just read with a smile on my face laughing out loud more often than I should have! 

Some of my favorite strips:

Calvin literally jumps out of his skin and wants to push his mother to the limit and make her jump out of her skin. Now he knows its possible.

     

  



 Calvin wants to go outside and play but he didn't clean his room so his mom "fixed her mind-scrambling eyeball ray" on him and "suddenly filled [him] with the desire to go back upstairs and do her nefarious bidding".

HIGHLIGHTED: "ENGLISH MUST NOT BE HER FIRST LANGUAGE" Great Line!

 

 He did clean his room... 

by throwing it all in the closet.... 

Bill Watterson also includes puns as part of the humor:




 
An inventive addition to the comic strips, a characteristic of Watterson's work, is Calvin's multiple personalities that show his imagination. There are several strips that are printed in color, representing Calvin as a superhero. His three other roles are:

Spaceman Spiff

Stupendous Man

Tracer Bullet

The one thing that I do not understand about Watterson's work is the inconsistency of every panel containing an outline. At least one panel in every comic strip is missing the outline.
Because Bill Watterson dismisses the existence of an outline, I would present him with a 9 out of 10 on his creation of Calvin and Hobbes.  

WHO IS BILL WATTERSON AND WHAT IS HE DOING NOW? 

Bill Watterson created Calvin and Hobbes in 1985 with inspiration from Peanuts, Pogo, and Krazy Kat. His style also resembled Windsor McCay's Little Nemo in Slumberland. Watterson was the original creator using aspects of his own life in the comic strips including speeches from his own father about character building and his cat Sprite who was the inspiration for Hobbes.

Before Calvin and Hobbes, he made several drawings and additional contributions for Target: The Political Cartoon Quarterly.

Watterson ended the strip in 1995 with this message to the public, "My interests have shifted, however, and I believe I've done what I can do within the constraints of daily deadlines and small panels. I am eager to work at a more thoughtful pace, with fewer artistic compromises. I have not yet decided on future projects, but my relationship with Universal Press Syndicate will continue." Now, Watterson has taken up painting and shows no indication of resuming the strip again. He stays out of the public's eye; he will not sign autographs, license his characters, or even give interviews.

 IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR A COMICAL READ - NO PUN INTENDED - PICK UP BILL WATTERSON'S CALVIN AND HOBBES !

SOURCES:

Pictures are taken right from the graphic novel.

&

Information was gathered from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_and_Hobbes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peanuts

    

Marvel: Civil War by Billy Pasquarello

Marvel: Civil War is a crossover storyline written by Mark Millar and drawn by Steve McNiven.  Most of the characters involved are of Stan Lee’s creation including Iron Man, Spider-Man, and the Fantastic 4. The story revolves around the premise of a Superhuman Registration Act, which basically is a law that requires superheroes to live without secret identities, as agents of the government. The act is proposed after a group of heroes on a reality TV show called the New Warriors, attempt to apprehend a group of villains. Trying to get higher ratings, the New Warriors attack the group of villains even though they know they’re outmatched. In the battle one of the villains (Nitro), explodes killing not only the New Warriors, but destroying a large section of the nearby town including an elementary school.

 After the fall out, the general public begins to despise superheroes, blaming them for the devastation. Some civilians even go as far to assault the Human Torch, calling him a killer, even though he had nothing to do the incident. The notion of a Superhuman Registration Act starts to fill the air leading to the superhero community to be split in two. Both sides have a main figure head to represent them, pro-registration being Iron Man, and anti-registration being Captain America.

When the law is slated to go into effect, Captain America refuses to sign it, becoming a fugitive of the law. Among superheroes who did sign it was Spider-Man, revealing his secret identity on live television. Iron Man wanted people and other heroes to see that a superhero the likes of Spider-Man registered, and that they should feel more comfortable now.

While underground, Captain America starts to recruit as many heroes as he can to his cause and starts the Secret Avengers, a group of heroes who still protect the innocent, but do so in secret to avoid being arrested.

Captain America leads the Secret Avengers, into an ambush by the pro-registration forces. However Captain America surprises Iron Man with a small device that shuts off Iron Man's armor when shaking his hand in agreement about the situation. This leads to a huge battle between the pro and anti-registration forces. A clone of Thor, was sent to help arrest the Secret Avengers, but instead kills Goliath with lightning.

As the pro-registration heroes attempted to control the clone, the Secret Avengers retreated. Reed Richards (Mr Fantastic) starts designing a prison in the Negative Zone (a parallel universe) to hold the anti-registration heroes as well as some villains. Upon hearing that anyone who refuses to register would be imprisoned indefinitely, Spider-Man leaves the pro-registration side to join the Secret Avengers (also he realizes that Iron Man is going too far in his pursuit of the Secret Avengers in what he is willing to do to catch them). Punisher is sent to steal the plans for the Negative zone prison from the Baxter Building which he does so successfully, leading the Secret Avengers to head to the entrance to free their allies.

Once there, they are met by Iron Man and a team of heroes and nanite controlled villains, trying to stop them from freeing their allies. Once freed, there is a battle of epic proportions, pitting friend against friend and in some cases husband against wife. The battle concludes with Captain America about to lay a finishing blow to Iron Man, but stops himself once he realizes that they are no longer helping people and fighting for justice, just fighting against each other. The story ends with Cap surrendering himself over to the authorities and everyone being left to deal with the devastation.

As you can see from the pictures ive posted The story is very picture based. That being said though, you are never lost for dialogue of content because of that. Some of the images are great to tell a story without words, but when the words are incorporated, they are as compelling as the pictures they’re within. As for the content, the story itself is a great read and I never really felt like anything wasn’t working within the story, just sometimes felt like they had some of the characters change from my perception of them. For example, I didn’t find that Mr. Fantastic was very consistent with himself from the other stories I’ve read. He didn’t seem like someone who was a superhero he seemed very cold and uncaring especially towards his wife. The main idea of the story really worked for me because I felt like a story like this was always in the back of everyone who reads comic books minds. Should superheroes be held accountable for their actions like cops or should they be above the law. It raises a lot of interesting questions and lets the reader pick whose side their on and maybe they don’t agree with their favorite hero, that leads to some awesome discussion.

This comic has an important place in comic book history. It’s the first time anyone looked to make superheroes accountable for their actions and have some superheroes become the villains of the story depending on what side you chose to side with. The fact that the outcome of the story is either a positive or a negative based on the person reading its point of view and that this one story affected the entire marvel universe for years to come is an awesome thing to think about. Definitely one of my favorite crossovers I’ve read and a must read for any comic book fan.

Alabaster: Wolves

Dancy Flammarion shows up in what looks like an abandoned looking town in South Carolina with nothing but a duffel bag on her back. While she waits at the bus stop, trying to leave, a black bird catches her attention. The bird recognizes her, apparently she is well known as the “murdering, albino kid.” After the bird tells her to leave he fly’s away, but Dancy isn’t alone for long when this girl comes by to check her out. She has heard of Dancy too and actually has something of hers that Dancy thought she lost a while back. When she tries to get it back through a game of riddles, the girl gets angry and transforms into this werewolf type creature. You begin to see that this Dancy girl has what she refers to as a “Seraph,” or an angel, following her and she is to do its bidding. She tries to get the Angel’s help during this battle but it doesn’t seem to do anything when she asks. Only when she calls out its name (which you find out what the name is later on) does it make any type of response. Eventually the fight ends and the werewolf girl is dead. Dancy is left with a bad wound to her shoulder area and a very angry angel. The Seraph became so enraged that she said its name that it burned a mark on her forehead and abandoned her.

When Dancy returns to the bus stop after the brawl, the bird returns to talk to her. After some time, a bus does finally show up but doesn’t even bother stopping and rushes right through. Dancy has no choice but to sleep in this abandoned diner and tend to her wounds.

That was the first chapter. At this point I’m thinking “Ok, nothing was really explained and I don’t know too much about anything yet but I’m sure it will open up and I will understand a bit better.”

The story goes on in the next chapter where Dancy, who ventures out into the town she is stuck in, finds herself at an old church. Inside is anything but what she considers "holy." She walks into this meeting, or so it seems, of these evil looking creatures. They all seemed to have heard of her and her killing reputation. After another bit of a brawl, Dancy seems done, passing out in the church as it’s burning down. In her mind it's over, she is finally going to die. She wakes up to find she was dragged out by the werewolf girl she defeated earlier, only now she is a ghost, and you find out her name is Maisie.

From there, the bird, the werewolf girl named Maisie, and Dancy set out through the area and you begin to learn a bit more about them all. There is really no explanation why the bird can talk though, or what the norms are in this world of theirs.

The work is written by Caitlin R. Kiernan, drawn and lettered by Steve Lieber, colored by Rachelle Rosenberg, and the covers for the chapters were done by Greg Ruth. This is Caitlin R. Kiernan’s most recent work and it was published in 2012 by Dark Horse Books. Kiernan has written many works prior to this and has even been approached by Neil Gaiman and some editors at DC/Vertigo Comics to work on the comic, “The Dreaming.” She also worked on and wrote the novelization for the film, “Beowulf.” (1)

While looking up information about the author, I find out that the main character in Alabaster Wolves, Dancy Flammarion, is a character of Kiernan’s that was introduced in one of her novels in 1998 called “Threshold.” These novels, according to the author, didn’t do well and in 2006 she returned to it and wrote short stories based on Dancy that were later collected and published in a book called “Alabaster.” (2)

This can be why I was a bit lost throughout the whole graphic novel. But this is the graphic story about her character, Dancy, and there shouldn’t have to be a requirement to read those other novels before reading the comic. The comic also doesn’t mention anywhere inside its pages that Dancy, the character, was based upon a previous novel.

I think the panels for the comic work pretty well though, apart from the story. I didn’t find myself confused and they varied in size, shape, and orientation a lot which made the pages and scenes more interesting. The writing though was something I felt I had trouble with. I found myself rereading word bubbles and word boxes a lot. I think it’s partially due to the way in which the characters speak; I think they are meant to have more of a southern accent and the way the sentence is formed seems like it's missing a word sometimes. I felt the action scenes were also handled pretty well. I wasn’t left confused on what was happening and the timing was spaced out just enough to get the play by play of the action while also keeping you interested. 

The art was my favorite thing about this comic. It was what drew me in in the first place. The cover caught my eye first, of course. I know they say to never judge a book based off its cover but the cover tells a story of its own to get you to open to the rest of the book.  Each chapter also had these wonderful covers that were drawn just beautifully and the dull, gray, color schemes helped to create and enhance the mood.

 

I felt the overall story was very rushed. Everything happened so fast. Even if you had read her previous novels where Dancy was first introduced, there is a lot of information thrown at you all at once and it leaves you lost or confused a lot. The parts I felt most satisfied with were the flashbacks. There was just enough information there to get you to understand what had happened and you felt satisfied with the information given. Even still, there wasn’t enough back story for me to really prepare for the ending when the villain is introduced and faced in battle.

During the last fight of the book with the main villain, who we only really found out about 20 or so pages before, I had no desire for either character to win or lose. I wasn’t entirely sure what they were fighting for to begin with either. 

When I first picked this up and began to skim through the pages, the overall feel I got from this comic related back to E.C. Comics. This graphic novel is grouped in with the fantasy and horror genre. E.C would have done something in this genre as well, more graphic most of the time though.

 

Alabaster Wolves

 E.C. really set the stage for all the horror comics and graphic novels out there today, Alabaster wolves is no exception. Comics like these, or the "Walking Dead" wouldn't be where they were now if not for E.C. Comics. The use of these sci-fi fantasy type creatures in Alabaster Wolves, such as werewolves in this case, and the dark colors and values sets the mood right away for each page. 

I do have a feeling there will be other publications of this series, or I'm hoping there are other ones for the near future because I feel this series has great potential. It would make sense to have other chapters or other publications related to this story line to get more of a backstory for the main character and a better sense of the plot overall. 

I find myself really wanting to like this graphic novel, like I said, I truely think this has a lot of potential to be something big. I don’t want to say I disliked it, but I also can’t say I enjoyed the story either. I loved the art, but you do need both the story and the art to make something such as this truely successful. 

I would recommend this to people if they want something visually captivating. I would also recommend reading Caitlin R. Kiernan's novel "Threshold," and/or "Alabaster," to get a better sense of Dancy Flammarion's character before starting this graphic novel.  

-Alexa Schwab