Bill Watterson began his influential Calvin and Hobbes comic strip on November 18, 1985. While other comics, like Charles M. Schulz‘s Peanuts, lasted for decades, Calvin and Hobbes, similar to Gary Larson‘s The Far Side, was around for a much shorter time.
Just 10 years after it began, Watterson ended his daily newspaper tales of a young boy and his stuffed tiger on December 31, 1995. Over that one decade, Calvin and Hobbes never slipped in quality. Still, many of its best strips were first published in the 1980s.
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Calvin Becomes Spaceman Spiff
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Image via Universal Press Syndicate</figure>
Calvin has quite the wild and vivid imagination. It’s the theme of the entire strip, after all, with Calvin imagining that his stuffed toy tiger, Hobbes, has come to life to be his best friend. That imagination doesn’t end with Hobbes, though. Calvin is bored with the daily monotony of life, and at the top of the list is school. There were many strips over the years when he checks out during class to imagine himself as a space hero named Spaceman Spiff.
Here, after imagining how high his insurance premiums must be for his spaceship (a worry he surely overheard from his parents), Calvin as Spiff begins a fiery descent as his craft begins to crash. He’s not totally lost in his mind. The crashing ship represents the anxiety of having to answer a math question. When Calvin accidentally gets it right, it’s shown as Spaceman Spiff avoiding a crash landing just in time.
6
Calvin Tries on Sunglasses
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Image via Universal Press Syndicate</figure>
Part of what makes Calvin and Hobbes so great is Bill Watterson’s artistic talent. Beyond the message of the content is some beautiful artwork. In this strip, we get a wide array of colors, from green to purple, orange to green. In this one, Watterson leaves us in the dark, so to speak, about what’s going on, with the first several panels showing Hobbes looking at us through those rainbow colors, each time giving his opinion on an unknown subject.
In the last three panels, what’s going on becomes clear. Bored at the store with his mom, Calvin is trying on sunglasses from a display case. Rather than his mom indulging him, she gets angry and tells him to put them back. Hobbes’ remark about adults having no taste sums up how Calvin feels all the time. Adults don’t understand him, and he doesn’t understand them either.
5
Calvin Gives His Dad a Big Surprise
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Image via Universal Press Syndicate</figure>
Calvin has an interesting relationship with his parents. Although we are often shown that they love him, and their son loves them back, they also get easily annoyed by his high-energy and incessant imagination. Here, you might expect Dad to get upset when his son interrupts his reading by asking him to close his eyes and open his mouth for a big surprise. Instead, despite the past telling us he should be wary, Dad goes for it, peeking just a tad because he knows what his son is capable of.
Rather than revealing what gross surprise Calvin has from his father, the last panel shows Calvin opening his hands only for nothing to be there. Whatever he was holding got away. This leaves the reader to use their own imagination. Was Calvin holding something very real and gross, like a frog, or was there nothing truly in his hands to begin with because his mind was conjuring up something even more disgusting?
Four people, four completely different ideas of what it means to have
somebody in your corner. Here is who picked up, what they would ask of you, and what you would get
back.
You want the friend who does not leave. Steve is the one who
turns up at the door without being asked, who remembers what you said you were worried
about, and who has never once made you audition for his attention.
- His entire character is built on a single sentence, which is that he will not abandon
somebody just because it has become expensive to keep them. - He is far funnier than people give him credit for, and the joke is almost always at his
own expense rather than yours. - The friendship comes with a cost, since being close to Steve means being dragged into
fights that were never yours and being glad about it later. - You would get a friend who tells you the hard thing to your face and then defends you to
everybody else in the room.
You want the friend who is genuinely exhausting and completely
worth it. Tony will forget your birthday, then build you something at four in the morning
that you did not know you needed, and hand it over as though it were nothing.
- He is bad at saying the warm thing out loud, so he says it in hardware instead, which is
why everybody around him ends up with upgraded everything. - Being his friend means putting up with the disappearing, the deflecting and the jokes
that arrive about ninety seconds too early. - What you get in return is somebody who will spend an unreasonable amount of money and
effort on a problem the moment it becomes yours. - He is the loudest person in the room and the one most likely to be quietly panicking
about all of you.
You want the friend who replies in four seconds and apologises
for it. Peter is earnest in a way that is almost unfashionable, and he will take on far more
than he can carry rather than admit that he is struggling.
- He is the only one on this list who needs looking after as much as he looks after you,
and that balance is exactly what makes it a real friendship. - Nobody in the MCU is better at the small stuff, from remembering the thing you were
nervous about to showing up with food you did not ask for. - Spider-Man: Brand New Day arrived in July 2026 and put him back where he works best,
which is broke, local and carrying the weight on his own. - You would get a friend who is sincerely, embarrassingly happy for you when something
goes right, with no edge to it at all.
You want the friend who insults your shoes, fixes your phone and
then quietly rearranges your entire life for the better. Shuri does not do soft reassurance,
and that is the reason you would believe her when she says you are fine.
- She is the smartest person in almost any room she walks into and treats that as a reason
to tease you rather than a reason to lecture you. - The teasing is the affection. When Shuri stops making fun of you, something has gone
seriously wrong and you should probably ask her about it. - Her story is the one on this list that goes somewhere genuinely dark, which is what
turned her from a scene stealer into the emotional centre of the films. - You would get a friend who never pities you, never softens the truth, and never once
lets you take yourself too seriously.
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Calvin Builds Snowmen For Dad
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Image via Universal Press Syndicate</figure>
Calvin and Hobbes moves through the seasons of a young boy’s life. Some of the best strips are about the freedom of summer away from school or the fun that can be had in the winter after it snows. Calvin’s imagination is dark and gory, with him bringing his twisted thoughts to life in the form of snowmen put in the worst of situations. Over the years, he’s shown them mangled and killed in some very disturbing ways, and this strip is no different.
It begins with Calvin using his feet to write some sort of insulting message to his dad in the snow, before moving on to building a collection of snowmen. Satisfied with himself, Calvin walks away with a smile on his face. The final reveal is hilarious, with a group of snowmen gathered around Calvin’s dad’s car, shocked to see that another has been ripped into pieces in an accident. While Dad jokes about getting his kid a psychiatrist, Calvin got what he wanted: his father’s attention. It’s funny, gross, and a little sad all at once.
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Calvin’s New Year’s Resolution
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Image via Universal Press Syndicate</figure>
One of the best 1980s Calvin and Hobbes strips comes on the last day of the decade, as this one was first published on December 31, 1989. Bill Watterson’s comic, while it might star a young boy, is not at all childish and tame. The creator often used his panels to work out his own adult thoughts through the eyes of a kid who is curious beyond his years and doesn’t understand adulthood.
Here, like in real life, it’s New Year’s Eve, and Calvin is walking in the snowy woods with Hobbes as he complains about the absurdity of New Year’s Resolutions. What good is it to make them if the woes of the world continue on unchanged? Hobbes has it all figured out at the end. There is no real future, because we’re still stuck making the same mistakes in the here and now. That’s deeper than the snow they walk in.
2
War Is a Stupid Game
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Image via Universal Press Syndicate</figure>
This one is another example of Watterson commenting on society through his comic strip. As much of a troublemaker as Calvin can be, he’s still innocent, which means that how he perceives the world is much more powerful than if the same thoughts were shown through a grown-up. Calvin and Hobbes love to play games (Calvinball, anyone?), yet this time, it gets all too real and thus not much fun.
Most kids grew up playing war, with friends pitted against each other as good guys and bad guys, the goal being to kill each other with their pretend guns. It’s pretty messed up if you stop and think about it, which Calvin does. When it’s all over, Calvin and Hobbes realize that everyone dies in war, and no one truly wins. It really is a stupid game we play.
1
A Christmas Hug
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Image via Universal Press Syndicate</figure>
Underneath the hijinks and mayhem, Calvin is a softy at heart. He really cares about his family, and he loves the holidays, especially Christmas. It’s not just a time of presents for him — it’s about togetherness, especially when he gets to spend more time with Hobbes and show how grateful he is for his best friend.
Here, Calvin is stricken with guilt over not getting Hobbes a Christmas present. That’s okay, though, because Hobbes didn’t get him one either. They hug, and in a moment of pure emotion, Calvin cries. It’s a sweet comic on multiple levels. The message of love being the true meaning of Christmas is there, but so is how Calvin’s mind works. He’s a lonely child, and his imaginary best friend helps him get through a confusing world. He doesn’t know what he would do without the stuffed toy that means so much to him.
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