Calvin and Hobbes was one of the best comic strips ever.

I still mourn the day Bill Watterson decided to end the strip. I'm very glad, though, that he ended it when he did because the worst thing that could have happened to the strip is that the humor of it, the heart of the strip and all of the characters, could have gone stale.

Take, for instance, another perennial favorite, Garfield. Garfield has been in existence for almost 30 years (it will be thirty years in 2008). How many more Monday jokes, pie jokes, Jon's ill-fated dates, attempts to mail Nermal to Abu Dhabi, etc, do we have to endure? Sure, it was cute the first few hundred times, but when is enough enough? Make no mistake: I am not bashing Garfield. I love Garfield and I like the fact that he's had a hit cartoon series, seemingly countless books and two live action movies. I'm happy for Jim Davis and I hope Garfield lives on for years. But I'm tired of reading it in the papers. In fact, most times, I skip it.

What Bill Watterson recognized was that as an art form the comic strip in general had devolved into simple sketches of mostly talking heads and not much else. There was hardly any development of characters and there were very few, if any, actual story arcs. Most daily strips ended with a quick joke or a silly pun. Watterson also was keenly aware that the medium as a whole could be so much more.

Bill Watterson filled the strip with vivid story arcs that dealt with so many different real life themes ranging from secret crushes to bullying to revenge, even death (think of the baby squirrel story). He treated his characters with the utmost respect and developed them more than just about any other comic.

And the panels that he would draw, especially the ones where Calvin was fantasizing, were simply incredible. From the golden age comic book styling of Calvin's alter-egos, Stupendous Man and Spaceman Spiff, to the hard-knock private eye, Tracer Bullet, who perpetually inhabited a life straight out of a film noir, Watterson showcased the very potential (and responsibility) that every comic strip artist has, and that the comics are not just filler; comics have a rich history that seems more and more to be taken for granted in exchange for a quick punchline and a syndication deal.

All this and I haven't even touched on Bill Watterson's fight to keep Calvin and Hobbes as a non-commercial entity as he felt that commercializing would have cheapened the artistic value of the product it was selling. But that whole battle is enough for another entry at another time. I've rambled long enough.

I don't expect that you're as much a fan of Calvin and Hobbes as I am, but here are some really good Calvin and Hobbes links for your perusal, which are the reason that I started writing this entry in the first place.

Simply Calvin and Hobbes
Calvin and Hobbes: Unplugged
Calvin and Hobbes Wonderland
Calvin and Hobbes.org
Calvin and Hobbes Unofficial Website
Calvin and Hobbes Making Snowmen
Bill Watterson's Wikipedia entry
An Interview with Bill Watterson
Drawn Into a Dark But Gentle World (this is a short essay Watterson wrote that was published prior to the end of Peanuts. A beautifully written homage)