![]() Īlthough Calvin and Hobbes underwent continual artistic development and creative innovation over the period of syndication, the earliest strips demonstrated a remarkable consistency with the latest. ![]() Within a year of syndication, the strip was published in roughly 250 newspapers and proved to have international appeal with translation and wide circulation outside the United States. The first Calvin and Hobbes strip was published on Novem in 35 newspapers. Though United Feature ultimately rejected the new strip as lacking in marketing potential, Universal Press Syndicate took it up. ![]() United identified these characters as the strongest and encouraged Watterson to develop them as the center of their own strip. United Feature Syndicate finally responded positively to one strip called The Doghouse, which featured a side character (the main character's little brother) who had a stuffed tiger. He explored various strip ideas but all were rejected by the syndicates. Lee Salem, Watterson's editor at Universal, recalling his reaction after seeing Watterson's first submission Ĭalvin and Hobbes was conceived when Bill Watterson, while working in an advertising job he detested, began devoting his spare time to developing a newspaper comic for potential syndication. When my then-8-year-old son remarked, 'This is the Doonesbury for kids!' I suspected we had something unusual on our hands." "I thought it was perhaps too 'adult,' too literate. In 2010, reruns of the strip appeared in more than 50 countries, and nearly 45 million copies of the Calvin and Hobbes books had been sold worldwide. Īt the height of its popularity, Calvin and Hobbes was featured in over 2,400 newspapers worldwide. Though the series does not frequently mention specific political figures or ongoing events, it does explore broad issues like environmentalism, public education, and philosophical quandaries. ![]() Hobbes's dual nature is a defining motif for the strip: to Calvin, Hobbes is a living anthropomorphic tiger, while all the other characters seem to see Hobbes as an inanimate stuffed toy, though Watterson has not clarified exactly how Hobbes is perceived by others, or whether he is real or an imaginary friend. It also examines Calvin's relationships with his long-suffering parents and with his classmates, especially his neighbor Susie Derkins. Set in the suburban United States of the 1980s and 1990s, the strip depicts Calvin's frequent flights of fancy and friendship with Hobbes. Commonly described as "the last great newspaper comic", Calvin and Hobbes has enjoyed broad and enduring popularity, influence, and academic and philosophical interest.Ĭalvin and Hobbes follows the humorous antics of the title characters: Calvin, a precocious, mischievous, and adventurous six-year-old boy and his friend Hobbes, a sardonic tiger. The cover of Calvin and Hobbes, the first collection of comic strips, released in April 1987.Ĭalvin and Hobbes is a daily American comic strip created by cartoonist Bill Watterson that was syndicated from November 18, 1985, to December 31, 1995. ![]()
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