by Rose Calder

Created on: February 03, 2010

From the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, there was one strip that dominated the funny pages, and that strip was Calvin and Hobbes.  During its short run, the strip was carried in thousands of newspapers across the country and around the world, garnered much in the way of praise and accolades for its creator, Bill Watterson, and possessed such a loyal fan base that even now - 15 years after the strip finished its run - they still feel the void left behind by its absence.  All of which makes you wonder; what was so special about a strip about a six-year-old boy and his stuffed tiger?

The short answer?  Plenty.

First and foremost, there was the innovation of the strip.  Granted, comic strips depicting children and childhood certainly aren't exactly a ground-breaking enterprise.  Considering the popularity and longevity of such comic strips as Peanuts and Dennis the Menace, it's practically old hat, but Watterson was able to straddle the line between these two extremes in child depiction.  Calvin, the titular six-year-old boy, was a consummate troublemaker, constantly hatching ever-bolder plans to either harass a neighborhood girl, earn money or get out of homework or household chores, all with hilarity ensuing.  But at the same time, Calvin was also capable of great introspection and insight, which he usually aired to his buddy, Hobbes, while riding in his wagon or sled down a perilous slope (with physically disastrous results at the punchline, natch.)  Had Calvin leaned too far one way or the other, the strip would have simply been more of the same, but by combining both qualities, Calvin displayed more depth than your average two-dimensional six-year-old. 

In a similar vein, there was Watterson's proposal of a new Sunday format, which hearkened back to the Sunday comics of yore.  Instead of a regulated seven-panel 1/4 page strip that could be shrunk or blown up at will, Watterson wanted to have a 1/2 page strip, still with the regulation seven panels but interchangeable in size, so that he would have more room for illustration.  There were those who thought the proposal was nothing short of vanity and selfishness on Watterson's part, but his later Sunday comics were breathtaking with the new format.  

Then is also the matter of the power of childhood imagination, which Watterson captured in a way that few others have been able to master.  Calvin lead a fantasy life that was as rich as Croesus, and

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