32 Years Later, Calvin and Hobbes' Best Strip About Homework Is Still Perfect

Hating homework is about as close to the universal childhood experience in the modern era as it can get, and this was made all the more apparent in cartoons and graphic fiction. From Bart praying for a miracle to cancel school so he’d have more time to prepare for a test in The Simpsons, to Jeremy Duncan weighing whether cheating would be worth it for his upcoming essay, it’s as understood by the youth as it is the adults with their own memories of growing up. But in Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin had a unique distaste for homework, even for a typical six-year-old, with plenty of comic strips to illustrated that point.

Whether it was team assignments in which his vivid imagination led in some creative but ultimately unhelpful directions, or remixing on the classic excuses to why he’s not done, Calvin exercised avoidance or even philosophical arguments due to his hatred of homework. But one comic, released on Sunday, October 30, 1994, was a pretty stellar encapsulation of his creative mind, hilarious wit, and hate for homework all bundled into one, with a pretty solid twist on one of the most common slacker clichés around.

Calvin and Hobbes’ Best Comic Strip On Homework Remixes The Ultimate Go-To Excuse

Everyone is aware of the ultimate cliché excuse for why one’s homework isn’t done: “My dog ate it.” This is such a go-to excuse it’s painfully obvious to any teacher, parent, or child paying even a little attention. But Calvin isn’t just any kid, and the idea that this excuse is so overdone prompts him, like any creative kid, to think somewhat outside the box while playing the hits. Recounting his reason for why he isn’t able to turn in his homework to the teacher, Calvin spins an elaborate tale in which his textbook comes alive, turns out to have an insatiable appetite, and violently devours his also-sentient pencil and, ultimately, his homework, before turning to attack Calvin next.

In terms of excuses teachers may have heard, this is undeniably a new one in most cases, with Calvin putting himself in as the unfortunate survivor who only lived by “breaking its spine.” Pointing to the defeated book as the devourer of his homework, it’s admittedly a pretty vivid scenario, while leading to an unexpectedly brilliant pun as Calvin puts the ravenous tome out of its mercy. The whole strip is striking because it highlights Calvin’s strengths and imaginative mind at play, only to inevitably crash against a brick wall when their obvious limitations present themselves.

Calvin’s Relationship With Homework Illustrates His Brilliance As A Character

Already known to be a pretty solid portrayal of a kid with an unfettered imagination and hyperactive energy, Calvin’s relationship with homework illustrates the essence of childhood’s desire for freedom while living in the rigid structure of elementary school. It often meant he was a nightmare for work distribution, such as when paired up with Susie Derkins. It even meant occasional flights of fancy in which he’d obliterate the entire school, as a means not to have to go. He’d even outright say how little he cares about what his teachers have to say, telling Miss Wormwood exactly that, likely being a driving factor for why she smokes two packs of cigarettes a day, unfiltered.

Yet, this doesn’t necessarily mean his carefree mind is actually incapable of the work put in front of him. In another strip in which he solves a problem Miss Wormwood gives him, Calvin’s imagination sets up a wild sci-fi scenario in which he’d set up the correct answer, to a math question at that, Calvin’s most-hated subject of all. It was a surprising moment from the November 30, 1986 strip, where the conquering hero prompts returns to his fantasy, proverbially landing the plane, or in this case, spaceship.

Calvin and Hobbes approached the school system with certain critiques of its execution and how it sets up future functioning members of society. But Calvin’s rationalizations against doing homework and escapist fantasies aren’t a sign of lower intelligence, as any reader will quickly pick up. They’re the result of a curious young mind thinking way outside the box, where, with patience and understanding, he can find his way to the answers ahead of him, whether on a math equation or future questions of life.

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