The boys, and Owen in particular, have all had their passions through the years, as a stroll through the CloudEight archives will attest. Cars, flags, baseball, etc. Rarely have all three had equal passion for something at the same time, however. That has happened here this past month though with their deep love of the old cartoon "Calvin and Hobbes." My Dad and I have been huge Calvin and Hobbes fans for many years, and have given each other pretty much every collection of Calvin cartoons that there is. When Owen was six, we slept in a tent in the back yard and I read him some Calvin and Hobbes. He enjoyed it a lot, and I was surprised how much it stuck with him. About a month ago, the twins picked up my couple of Calvin and Hobbes collections that survived the flood of a couple of summers ago, and were hooked. Soon, all three boys were buried deep in Calvin and Hobbes whenever they had a free moment, guffawing loudly and reading their favorites to each other. Things really kicked into overdrive a couple of weeks ago when my Dad arrived with an armload of additional collections. Now, there are Calvin and Hobbes books on all nightstands, on the dining room table, in the living room, the basement, and, as a recent evening clean-up sweep revealed, on the deck. Dinners, after Calvin books are ripped from unwilling hands so we can have some actual conversation, are dominated by verbatim recitations of each persons favorites, with the others correcting the other if there is the slightest misquote (Sunday eight panel cartoons, as told by Hayden, take a particularly excruciatingly long time to be retold). Things Calvin says are dropped into conversation as their own "clever" comments. Cartoons are acted out.
While Calvin is not the greatest role model, there are redeeming qualities to this obsession. I love the unconditional nature of Calvin and Hobbes friendship. Also, as Owen has pointed out, Calvin is "only six but has an extraordinary vocabulary" (the line between cartoon and cartoonist appears to be a little fuzzy to everyone still). While the twins are great readers for (freshly minted) kindergarten graduates, the vocabulary of the characters has resulted in some serious reading challenges for them. A quick survey of just a couple of pages just now included the following words: diagnoses, propelling, shards, mange, homicidal, vessels and lobotomy. Their attempts to read various cartoons out loud or recite them from memory has resulted in many great mispronunciations. They have certainly learned a lot of words from the books, some good, some less good (Hayden was recently yelling at Cooper that he was a tapioca head, except he was pronouncing it ta-poke-a head, much to our amusement). The character's musing on life and philosophy in some strips, while mostly going over their heads, have to give at least Owen food for thought. Calvin's fabulous imagination as expressed through the cartoons has, I think, helped inspire creativity in our own little Calvins.
I have also had a chance to revive my appreciation for this brilliant cartoon. Bill Watterson retired from the grind of a daily comic while he was still at the top of his game (take note writers of sad, tired old comics like Broom Hilda). His fight against his syndicate over licensing, and his ultimate victory and refusal to license Calvin, so as not to dilute his creation, is inspiring, as was his fight against the syndicates in general and his attempts to stop the shrinking of the spaces allotted to each cartoon, especially in the Sunday paper.
Finally, knowing the guys can revisit and still enjoy this particular passion forty years from now, finding totally different things in it than they do now is pretty cool too. That's it for now; see you in the funny papers.
