Hilarious Tumblrs are a dime a million these days, but as humorous as corgi lists, donuts and literature, and reaction GIF aggregators are, it’s rare that a Tumblr transcends one-dimensional punnery and actually scrambles your brain like, you know, art. But Calvin and Hobbes GIFs does just that.The brilliance of Bill Watterson’s creation lies in his devotion to treating comic strips as more than two panes of setup for a gag. As he noted at length in a number Calvin and Hobbes collections, he held a stubborn attachment to the early days of newspaper comics, in which large page space allowed for equally grandiose storylines and artwork. As he lamented in his writing, shrinking space for strips forced comics to remove nearly everything but the punchlines.
But with Calvin and Hobbes, Watterson was still able to treat every strip and subplot as part of a larger narrative, which is exactly why regular readers are able to connect so well with Watterson’s characters. You know what it’s like to be in Calvin’s world, which is one that feels must larger, immersive and kinetic than a series of still drawings would normally convey.
The one thing lacking from the strip, however, was animation. Watterson never allowed for Calvin and Hobbes to make the jump into the animated world — largely because he was worried about casting Calvin’s voice — which meant that readers were never able to see Calvin’s world outside of their own head. I suppose that’s fitting, considering so much of Calvin’s world was in his own head anyway, but damn. Seeing these GIFs adds so much more depth and perspective to the whole world, I’m feeling like I’m back in sixth grade flipping through all of the Calvin and Hobbes collections again. Perhaps it’s time I did.
Follow Derek Mead on Twitter: @derektmead.
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