Imagination and Meaning in Calvin and Hobbes

by Jamey Heit

From 1985 to 1995, the syndicated comic strip Calvin and Hobbes followed the antics of a precocious six-year-old boy and his sardonic stuffed tiger. At the height of its popularity, the strip ran in more than 2,400 newspapers and generated a fan base that continues to run in the millions. This critical analysis of Calvin and Hobbes explores Calvin's world and its deep reservoir of meanings. Close readings of individual strips highlight the profundity of Calvin's world with respect to a number of life's big questions, including the things that one values, friendship, God, death, and other struggles in life. By engaging with Calvin and Hobbes as more than "just" a comic strip, this work demonstrates how the imagination remains an invaluable resource for making sense of the world. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may .

Genres: Nonfiction

220 pages, Paperback

First published February 7, 2012

Reviews

[Pete Wung · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is definitely not Calvin and Hobbes the comic strip. This is a very dense and very academic work of philosophical analysis of a comic strip. Definitely not for the feint of heart. Jamey Heit does a very interesting and freewheeling analys si of the meaning and structure of the humor behind Calvin and Hobbes, one of the more cerebral and delightful comic strips in recent years.

The analysis gets very complicated very quickly, Jacque Derrida gets mentioned in the second page of the first essay. So this is not for the casual fan, this is for the fan of the strip that also has a good grounding in modern philosophy.

It is very interesting and very very intellectually stimulating, but I can see where people who bought the book for some lighthearted reading about their favorite strip can get turned off.

[Erika · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was not an easy book to read, the author keeps quoting and referring to different philosophers and such that I don't know with no introduction to who they are or what their philosophies are so I consonantly felt like I was dropping into the middle of some other conversation.

It didn't help that there were no examples of the actual comic , though I understand why this couldn't happen, but without the comics the text was made even harder to follow and drying and uninteresting.

There were parts I could follow and they seemed well written even if I disagreed with him but this just isn't a book for the average Watterson fan or non-academic to read.

[Scott Martin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sometimes, people can make mountains out of molehills, to take something like a comic strip and make it into a deep discussion about the philosophy of life itself. The author tries that here. Yet, even as he warned that people can read too much into things (a comic strip can just be a comic strip), he proceeds to fall into that trap. Perhaps it is timing, but it was just not working for me. The book jumped around a lot, and it just got to a point that I couldn’t follow and I had to bail. Maybe if this was a textbook or thesis for a philosophy major, I can see it. Yet, for general consumption, it doesn’t really work. Also, it could have actually put in the comic strips in question (unless there were some copyright issues). It might work for some, but not for me. This is for the philosophy student who wants some modern examples to clarify what can be very dry concepts, not for the fan of the strip curious to see how the work could be interpreted.

[Carlosfelipe Pardo · Rating 3 out of 5]

VERY Complicated account of why calvin and hobbes has a strong philosophical baqckground. watterson has already explained most of it in his own words. This book goes too much in depth in complex philosophical issues to explain what is generally evident in the strip. However, the conclusion is very nice and there are some useful sections. The lack of images is a great loss, apparently this would have cost a lot more but would have made it a beautiful read and reduced verbal descriptions of images that already exist.

[Dani Shuping · Rating 1 out of 5]

When I first saw this book was coming out, I was excited as Calvin and Hobbes is one of my favorite strips of all time. I mean, I bought the three volume complete set as soon as it was announced and read most of it in a weekend and I’ve always enjoyed the deeper aspects of the work, those sly puns and look at life that you started understanding as you get older. And that’s what I thought this book would focus on. Instead the author of this book starts relating aspects of Calvin and Hobbes to Plato and Hegel and it reads like we’re supposed to be in a room full of older British professors sitting at a fire place, stroking their beards, going “hmm...quite right.” In other words its so far over the head of most readers that any meaning that this book might have had is lost in the overly analytical language. In addition, because the author is more interested in the text there are no images of the strips that he talks about. Which to me shows that he really doesn’t understand the work because the text and art go together in a comic strip. You can’t have one without the other. It would be like trying to read a Superman comic without being able to see him hold Lois in his arms and save the day. In other words, if you really want to understand Calvin and Hobbes, bypass this book and get the collections. You’ll enjoy those more.