I’ve been working my way through the complete Calvin and Hobbes, three huge tomes containing the entire run. It has aged well. After 20+ years, Calvin’s antics and Hobbes’ witticisms still amuse. I had forgotten, or perhaps not realized, how profoundly the strip had affected me. It celebrated imagination, making up your own rules, and overlaying reality with your own template. As an adult, I don’t look back and say to Calvin “Oh, you naive boy, you have no understanding of the world’s complexities.” I find myself saying, “You are right, Calvin. That is true, but adults pretend it isn’t.”

When I was a kid, I was bothered by Watterson’s seeming inability to stay on model with Hobbes. Sometimes he drew the tiger like Hobbes was just a stuffed animal. But now I know better. The stuffed animal was a metaphor for how adults just can’t deal with seeing the tigers all around them.