First There Was Nothing...Then There Was Calvin

#1 Calvin and Hobbes

See Introduction | #9|#8| #7|#6|#5|#4|#3|#2

Not fair, you cry. It's not a webcomic. It was a newspaper comic strip, and its creator retired well before the rise of the Internet.

Perhaps, but thanks to UCLICK and Google Reader, I can still read it every day. And whether or not it truly belongs on a list of webcomics, its tremendous influence on the medium cannot be denied. An entire generation of Americans has been shaped by reading Calvin and Hobbes every morning.

As the folks at Progressive Boink expressed it:

I can confidently state that Calvin and Hobbes outclasses the rest of the comic strip world more than anything else has ever outclassed the rest of its medium. Sans this strip, the industry is characterized by guys sitting on rocks making stupid puns, a Family Circus kid misunderstanding the meaning of a word, or an overweight father playing golf while telling jokes such as I LIKE GOLF and GOLF IS HARD. It's a medium that doesn't really deserve something as good as Calvin and Hobbes, but it got it anyway, and the newspaper-reading world was made a better place by it.

Hyperbole, yes. But not by much. Calvin and Hobbes was much more than just entertaining. It made us think. Even as children, we recognized ourselves in the two protagonists, whether in their stringent refusal to yield to authority, their inability to escape their own nature, or the way in which they are so misunderstood by the adults around them. They are miniature philosophers, and we will forever owe Bill Watterson a debt for their creation.

Since his retirement, Watterson has become our generation's Salinger. The longer he resists any kind of compromise or comeback, the more the legend of Calvin and Hobbes grows. He is the Beatles, minus the solo careers, Abraham Lincoln, absent a bullet in the head.

It is incredible to realize that Calvin and Hobbes only ran for a single decade. It is as much a part of my mornings as the New York Times, breakfast cereal, or oxygen.
Be thankful we lived to see it, and feel sad for those who passed their lives in the interminable dark ages that proceeded its advent.

Milan Kundera writes:

Once upon a time I too thought that the future was the only competent judge of our works and actions. Later on I understood that chasing after the future is the worst conformism of all, a craven flattery of the mighty. For the future is always mightier than the present. It will pass judgement on us, of course. And without any competence.

Who can say how the future will judge Calvin and Hobbes. In two hundred years, will our sons and daughters will be reading it alongside Faulkner, Beckett, and Fitzgerald? I can only assert that they should be.

Lyric Of The Day:

He's a miniature philosopher
He takes notes on all he reads
But that doesn't satisfy his needs
He's a desk clerk at the bank and trust
There's so many contracts and paperwork to do
He gets so busy at the bank and trust
There is no time for Nietzsche or Camus


He's a miniature philosopher
He writes essays on Voltaire
But if he died no one would care


He doesn't know why his life turned out this way
No one ever reads his dissertations or allegoric plays
So he comforts himself while searching a rhyme
That the public rarely recognize a genius in their time
(poor little guy)
He's a miniature philosopher
Though he hasn't got a friend
He's sure he'll be famous in the end

"The Miniature Philosopher"
-Of Montreal

Marmaduke Would Look Quite Dapper In That Top Hat

# 7 Wondermark

See Introduction | #9 |#8

The magic of webcomics stems from the freedom inherent in the medium. Unlike traditional comic strips, which are beset with strict guidelines for format and structure, as Bill Watterson famously struggled against, comics on the internet are free to evolve in any direction they wish. The variety of webcomics are stunning.

Take for example A Softer World, which takes a strip of three usually related photos and grafts a poem over them with seemingly unrelated text. Or how about Untitled Gif. I cannot even begin to explain what it is about, but I still enjoy reading it.

Imagine how great Marmaduke would be if Brad Anderson had been free to explore his full artistic vision. It might have turned out something like Wondermark.

In Wondermark, you have illustrations that look like artwork from turn of the century (the 20th, not the 21st) magazines or street fliers, with absurd story lines created. The style is stunning, and the immediate response upon first viewing it is to wonder how the artist does it. Does he painstakingly draw each one? Is their some kind of computer wizardry involved?

Apparently, the creator, David Malki ! (so astonishing, he has an exclamation point in his name) scans in the drawings from 19th century woodcuts and engravings. He then uses them as the basis for the strip. But to fully appreciate the time and labor involved, read his description of the process.

The final product is the seventh best webcomic in the universe. My favorites include In which Jody is burning some trash, In which it's Hot, and In which we went Too Far.

Wondermark is unique in that it excels in terms of both story and visuals. Not a combination you find very often in the world of webcomics. It makes me wonder why Malki with an exclamation point is not earning a real living as a graphic designer or advertiser. His parents must be very disappointed.

Lyric Of The Day:

Looking back on when i
Was a little nappy headed boy
Then my only worry
Was for christmas what would be my toy
Even though we sometimes
Would not get a thing
We were happy with the
Joy the day would bring

Sneaking out the back door
To hang out with those hoodlum friends of mine
Greeted at the back door
With boy thought I told you not to go outside,
Tryin your best to bring the
Water to your eyes
Thinkin it might stop her
From woopin your behind

I wish those days could come back once more
Why did those days ev-er have to go
I wish those days could come back once more
Why did those days ev-er have to go
Cause I love them so

"I Wish"
-Stevie Wonder