Celebration of Calvin and Hobbes

I will be traveling this week, so don't expect to post much. Maybe a post tomorrow (Monday), but don't count on it. Check back a week from now, and maybe you will be able to read a report on my trip to the "Masters of American Comics" exhibit at the Hammer Museum and Museum of Contemporary Art in L.A.

Speaking of Masters of American Comics, the complete Calvin and Hobbes collection is now available . . . if you have about $100 to spare. I don't have that kind of money to drop on a comic strip collection, but it matters not. Because of this book's release, news organizations have spent some time considering C&H, the state of today's comics, and the genius behind some of the greater strips. Here is NPR's take. That includes some remarks by Berkley Breathed (Bloom County, Opus). Breathed remains amazed at C&H's ability to be funny and endearing to audiences of all ages. It didn't need to be political, and it didn't need to be edgy, and it was brilliantly funny without being off-putting.

According to Neely Tucker of the Washington Post, "'Calvin and Hobbes' was such an exuberant, strange and metaphysical realm you wonder how it ever got shoveled into a comic strip." Complete article here. Do a Google News search, and you will find all sorts of C&H retrospectives. I just got 204 results.

So, artistic genius in the comics is possible. With Calvin and Hobbes, and Gary Larson's Far Side, the '80s were a special time in the funny pages. NOTE: Both authors quit while they were ahead. I hate that they are gone, but thankful that these works of genius did not become watered down pieces of mediocrity.