In today’s technological world, newspapers have become a thing of the past. The comics went with them. Just a few decades ago, newspapers were big business. On a Sunday morning at my house, you would gather at the table with your family, read the newspaper, while your mom cut out coupons for your next trip to the grocery store. When your father came home from work on weekdays, the first thing he did was pick up the sports section. If you were a child, you immediately went to comics. Peanut there was a gang. It was Garfield, Dennis the Menace, blondie, Hagar the Terribleand much more. However, the king of comics, if you were a child of the 80s and 90s like me, was Calvin and Hobbes.
Worked from 1985-1995, Bill Wattersonthe comic was a daily adventure that featured the quick-witted and short-tempered six-year-old Calvin and his plushie tiger, Hobbes. To adults in Calvin’s world, Hobbes is just a lifeless toy. However, in Calvin’s imagination, Hobbes is a real talking tiger. They’re best friends (in fact, Hobbs is Calvin’s lonely kid’s only friend), but that’s not all. Hobbes represents Calvin’s conscience. Whenever Calvin wants to do something naughty, which happens often, Hobbes is always there to explain to him why he shouldn’t do it.
For a child, this comic was everything. Especially if you were a lonely child like Calvin. It was an escape into your imagination where you could go on adventures with a friend just like you. Because Hobbes was the imaginary friend of Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin and Hobbes became the imaginary friends of thousands of children. Perhaps this is what Bill Watterson always hoped for.
Aside from the adventures and Calvin getting into some kind of amusing trouble, there was something smarter than the usual comic brewing under the surface. As a child, you may not have figured out how to tell what something was, but you knew it was there. This comic was different from the cheesy superficiality of more popular strips like Garfield. Something more serious was happening.
It wasn’t until you got older that you brought up the themes of loneliness and commercialization. This is one of the reasons why so many adults still enjoy reading strips. Sure, it’s nostalgia, and we love seeing Calvin and Hobbes again, but we notice little things we didn’t notice before, making it feel like we’re reading the strip for the first time.
It gets even more special when you look at how the comic ended and the person behind it. In 1995 Calvin and Hobbes was as famous as Peanut as well as Garfield. However, Bill Watterson did not want to spend thirty or forty years stamping daily strips. He didn’t want it to disappear and become a shell of what it was, so he got out while it was still gorgeous. Watterson also disappeared from public view, JD Salinger a style never seen by the prying eyes of his fans. Over the past two decades, he’s done a few print interviews and written a few comics, but that’s about it.
Watterson had a chance to commercialize Calvin and Hobbes. He could make millions from tiger soft toys alone. He said “no” to every request. The Kelvin bumper stickers you see are all unlicensed creations that he has nothing to do with. He was even offered to make a feature film based on his creation. There must have been a temptation. There were countless Peanut films and TV shows. Dennis the Menace became a feature film. Garfield there was an animated series and a few live-action movies that we wish we could forget about. However, Watterson did not give up.
Just like J.D. Salinger never wanted Catcher in the Rye corrupted by Hollywood, just like Watterson with Calvin and Hobbes. This is the best decision he has ever made. Of course, there will always be curiosity to see them move across the screen instead of our imagination, hear them speak and watch them for ninety minutes instead of ninety seconds. However, once you get over this curiosity, there is no reason to worry. Calvin and Hobbes film that ever existed. It can’t possibly ever work.
Calvin and Hobbes was special to its readers, unlike other comics where you read them and then go about your business. Calvin and Hobbes stuck with you. They were your friends. Adapting them to film would mean that the children and the adults they have become would have to share this feature beyond how it existed in our individual minds. That would quickly diminish its magic, because how do you create something that everyone will enjoy if it’s such a unique and very personal experience for its readers? It’s impossible to bring back the magic of a child’s imagination and turn it into a movie.
There would be so many options to consider for a feature film. Is it hand-drawn animation, like in comics, or does it become computer-generated, like Peanut became? What is the movie about? What time of year is it set for? Calvin and Hobbes adventures happen both in summer and winter. How do you settle for one? There are so many seemingly small things to consider that become big problems when they turn into a movie, like how to even choose voices for a couple when they exist differently in everyone’s head. For example, you can hear Hobbes in a childish voice, others may have always imagined him as more adult. How to find a compromise and create something that everyone will like? It’s impossible.
First of all, the strip was never intended for commercial use. Everything is becoming commercial these days. Even Peanut, the most famous comic ever, has gone blurry as you watch a gang try to sell you insurance during commercial breaks for a football game. Have Calvin and Hobbes not falling into that trap only makes it a lot more timeless.
Today, there is nothing more commercialized than films, where, after all, only the box office counts. No producer will care how good a movie is. Calvin and Hobbes potentially if he doesn’t make $50 million on his opening weekend. Calvin and Hobbes there were deeper themes. Calvin may have loved films about violence, for example, but Watterson used it as a commentary on society.
The movie would miss the point and serve only as a weak imitation of something that cannot be recreated. It would have been someone else’s vision that I saw, not my own. They were never meant to exist like this. If Hobbes was an imaginary friend of Calvin, then these two were also imaginary friends to children like me growing up, and in my imagination they are destined to stay.
Source: Collider
