Spaceman Spiff And His Trusty Tiger

Calvin And Hobbs.

First published on November 18th, 1985...within one year, it was featured in over 250 newspapers and was hugely popular. At a time when most comic strips were fading out or were essentially just being republished to fill space, this pair of animated pals were a fresh take on an old medium.

Calvin is a six year old boy who has a vivid imagination and a beyond-his-years intelligence. He imagines his stuffed tiger is really a real tiger named Hobbs and they go through life and all its philosophical trails and tribulations just like any six year old and stuffed tiger would.....they are wise beyond their years and reckless with their own safety. But its not about the destination....its about the journey.

They bother Calvin's dad with questions no six year old should ever need to ask....they annoy Calvin's mom with random destruction and a sense of mischief...they torture the little girl from school, Susie, with their immature boyness (Calvin really likes Susie, but don't tell him that)...they cause Rosalyn, their babysitter, endless trouble while helping her to fund her college education (Rosalyn is the only one that will babysit Calvin....for a very high price).

But Calvin is not always a rotten kid. He battles space aliens in his spaceship on distant planets that are really his school or his own house....the aliens being his teacher and his parents. Calvin can make very good use of a large cardboard box and his wonderful imagination, turning it into a duplicator and making several copies of himself ("they" cause all kinds of trouble that his mom blames him for), making it into a Transmogrifier, which changes the user into any desired shape.....usually with disastrous effect, or even turning it into a time machine.

Spending time with Calvin and Hobbs is to spend time enjoying the simple things, the fun things, the smart things. He's a look inside the rambunctious boy (or girl) we all were and the adult we eventually wished we had become...wise, enlightened, and carefree. His imagination HAS come to life and it makes the world a better place for him and everyone around him....well maybe not the adults in his life but they'll someday look back on this kid and his oversized sense of fun and long for those days when they've finally passed.

To those that have loved and enjoyed this comic strip or to those that missed all the silliness and fun, here is the very first strip that appeared featuring this boy we all wished we could be and the tiger he'd love forever.