Thank You, Mr. Watterson: An Open Letter to One of the Great Artists of All Time

I didn’t know what avant-garde meant. I was only eight, man. Thirty-five years later, my son Jack didn’t know, either. He’s seven (and-three-quarters, thank you very much).

But it didn’t stop us from laughing.

I didn’t have to know what avant-garde meant to get the joke. The funny was in there somehow, even before I understood the words. Seeing the tiny, bobblehead-shaped kid in the snow, talking art with his imaginary tiger buddy, was just plain pleasing.

I met Calvin & Hobbes in an actual newspaper, the kind that blackens your fingers and palms. Each morning I had a routine: grab the sports section (had to see what kind of numbers MJ put up on the Pistons the night before) and the arts/style/life section with the funnies in back. I’d splay them out in front of me, always to the right of my cereal. From Charles Schulz’s iconic Peanuts to Lynn Johnston’s For Better or Worse, there were lots of great strips—but for me, there were just two that stood alone: Gary Larson’s The Far Side and my all-time favorite, Bill Watterson’s Calvin & Hobbes.

Nothing compared to Calvin & Hobbes.

Every day, it was Calvin versus the world. His imagination rocketed him wherever he wanted to go. I went along as he crashed and smashed his way through his lovely, normal little life. Calvin was adventurous, direct, and passionate, armed with a vocabulary that ranged from erudite to downright grotesque. He probed every idea, examined them, and asked why. He had big feelings, even bigger ideas, and an unflappable sense of justice. I knew he was asking for trouble, and I desperately wanted to see the results.

When I became a father—nearly thirty years later—I hadn’t read Calvin & Hobbes in a long, long time. It was a chilly January morning when I handed my son Jack my copy of The Essential Calvin and Hobbes. We read it together, and in less than five minutes he was hooked.

“Is Hobbes real, Daddy?” he asked. It was plain to see he wanted the answer to be yes.

“It depends on how you look at it,” I said. I asked him what he thought.

“I think he’s real,” said Jack, with closed eyelids and a confident nod.

I left him there with the book. The house went completely quiet. Little context here: unless he’s asleep, the presence of complete silence while Jack is in the house is an exceedingly rare phenomenon. It left me curious. I peeked at the video monitor that’s been in his room since he was a baby, and found him in his reading chair, his little bare feet tucked up under him, completely engrossed.

Two years later, he still reads it every week. He keeps one or two of the various collections in his bed most nights and reads them before he falls asleep or just after waking up. The books come with us on car rides and road trips. Over and over again. Many of our conversations begin with “Dad, remember when Calvin…” He loves to read aloud, giving all the emotion and sound effects their due.

We always talk about what happened.

Whenever he comes across a new word—and there are plenty—he asks me how to say it and what it means. Sometimes it’s a stretch for a second-grader, but most times he seems to understand in his seven-year-old way.

Existential.
Transmogrification.
Aesthetes.
Machiavellian.
Zenith.
Schadenfreude.

The list goes on and on.

Calvin & Hobbes gives us hundreds of opportunities to learn before knowing. I recently learned that this is an actual thing—something called fast mapping, and it’s a critical part of language learning. I’ve always gravitated to books, films, and TV shows where the writers clearly refuse to dumb it down. When it comes to stories, we deeply want to be pulled in. Our brains seem to like a solid yank.

When I was a kid, Calvin’s dad reminded me of my dad. Now, he reminds me of me. I used to only have empathy for Calvin, but now I feel a deep kinship with Calvin’s parents, teachers, and even his cranky babysitter Rosalyn. Jack, on the other hand, thinks Calvin’s dad is “mean,” his mom is “grumpy,” and Rosalyn is “evil.”

I get it, my son. I totally get it.

Funny + heart + consequences + meaning. What a powerhouse. It was never dumbed-down, and always felt familiar (which is odd, considering Calvin frequently found himself standing in front of drooling space creatures or launching cruise missiles at dinosaurs).

What stands out to me most is the enduring value of the experience. I’m not even sure I can articulate what I ultimately gained from Calvin & Hobbes.

Joy.
A desire to be smart, skeptical, and circumspect.
The simple pleasure of imagining something bizarre or hilarious.

Maybe it was the lesson that it’s quite easy—if you try a little—to escape the drudgery of everyday life. Whatever the gains, it doesn’t need an explanation to be felt. It’s there.

Jack and I are grateful.

Thank you, Mr. Watterson, wherever you are.