Calvin's Echoes

A fun article on The AV Club website highlights some online cartoonists' ideas of where the infamous Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes cartoon fame might be today.

Several folks have offered versions of what the world's most dangerous six-year-old might be like as a dad, married to childhood nemesis Susie Derkins and now a parent. One set of strips calls itself Hobbes and Bacon, continuing the philosophically-themed names by giving Calvin and Susie a daughter named after Francis Bacon, just as Calvin's name comes from John Calvin and Hobbes' from Thomas Hobbes. A couple of artists have followed this strand.

Another is called Calvin and Company, and it also marries Calvin and Susie as adults. But it gives them twins, named after Albert Camus and Simone de Beauvoir, and it also includes Calvin's unnamed parents, who have morphed from "Mom" and "Dad" to "Grandma" and "Grandpa" and who are decidedly more laid back with their grandchildren than they were with their son. Now an adult, Calvin sees Hobbes as just a stuffed tiger like everyone else in the original strip did. But to his son and daughter, the tiger is a bit more animated...

The Hobbes and Bacon strips are fun, but I thought the Calvin and Company run had more of the feel of the original strip and brought some laugh-out-loud moments of its own. You can find the links for them all at the AV Club story.

All of the artists are clear that the characters and their likenesses are owned by the reclusive Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson. Although Watterson was historically opposed to licensing his work to other artists or for merchandise, here's hoping he'll recognize the spirit of homage, tribute and fun in the online strips. Or, if he's somehow unable to do so, here's hoping he never sees them.