The world as I see it. Review on Calvin and Hobbes

''Where do we keep all our chainsaws, Mom?''

Well, who doesn?t love comics, especially the ones in the daily newspapers? They provide essential comic relief in the daily news. And which other strip can live up to the magnificent heights reached by Calvin & Hobbes.

Calvin and Hobbes is a comic strip written by Bill Waterston. He started writing them in 1985 and wrote them for about a decade. The main characters in the strip are Calvin, a seven year old brat and Hobbes, a stuffed tiger, who comes alive or maybe seems alive to Calvin when they are alone.

Calvin is not your regular seven year old. He is the one character where the creator of the strip is very forthcoming in his imagination and weirdness. Also Calvin is a platform for the writer to bring out his ideas and therefore the depth of ideas (however inverted, crooked and stupid), and vocabulary of Calvin does not represent his character (and his age), but rather the thoughts that were going on in Waterston?s mind when he was writing the strip.

Hobbes on the other hand is the cool, intelligent animal (when he is with Calvin). He seems perpetually amused by Calvin and his antics. He also, according to Waterston has ?the patient dignity and common sense of most animals.?

Enough of history and background information. The question is ?Why am I rating the strip so high? It all seems a confusing info where things contradict each other.?

Well to get the answer of the question, you will have to read a few of the strips. They, in my opinion are the most hilarious strips I have ever written. Moreover, the strip?s humor is mostly satire (not always) which exaggerate the situations surrounded Waterston when he was writing that particular strip. This quality is unique and hence the humor (according to me) superior.

I am often reminded in exaggerated fashion, while reading C&H, what school was like. What I had felt, when I was sitting in class dreaming about the things I would have liked to do then. Strange fantasies and, absurd imagination, while part of it overblown in the strip are a part of every child?s growing up stage.

From imagining striking down the school building with missiles to imagining himself being a superhero (stupendous man) to be precise. Calvin does it all. He goes to a school which he hates, and the only friend he seems to have is the poor Susie who is constantly surprised by the heights of Calvin?s weirdness.

His snow art series is my favorite. One has to appreciate the imagination of Waterston to be able to come up with such brilliant (sometimes gross) ideas.

They have a club (with 2 members, Calvin and Hobbes) called GROSS (Get Rid Of Slimy girlS) where they harass girls (basically just Susie).

But again this is not just why I love C&H. I am not sure about this, but it seems that I would love to be the weirdest character around, but don?t have the guts to be. So somehow I aspire to be myself and not care a damn about other things and social norms.

After reading C&H, one can?t help but empathize with Calvin?s parents. They seem exasperated (and why not) with Calvin, but also cant help but laugh on the strips which are funny on their expense.

I am writing a review after a really long time. This is on account that my exams are over and I do not have to study at all. Therefore all my free time has vanished. It has taken me 5 days just to finish this review. So please forgive me if it does not flow properly.

Advice: If new to Calvin and Hobbes, don?t be put off by the weirdness, read on, you will come to appreciate it.

Now one of my favorite strips

''Do you like being a girl?''