OP coming back around. I came around to Calvin & Hobbes. First, I'm a bit shocked at how 1980's the strip is. I guess I should have seen that coming, but it's still odd to read a comic strip that so immerses itself in its era. It's different than just various cultural or current references, it's in the underlying foundations of the comic itself. It's like how the Simpsons is very 1990's; it's more than just the topical jokes, it's a part of what it is fundamentally. It's also interesting how "postmodern," for lack of a better word, the strip is. A lot of the jokes boil down to doing cartoony stuff but ending them with realistic outcomes. For example, one Sunday is of Calvin attempting to paraglide off of the back of his red wagon with an umbrella. He is dragged across the ground, runs into a tree, and falls into a lake. Cartoons are the area where stuff like that should be able to happen, but C&H is having none of it. It works very well. The science fiction stuff struck me as quite off color at first, but I've come around to it now. The joys of childhood. I was also surprised that the comic is so open about Hobbes not being real.
I'm pretty early on, and I know the comic changes up a lot as it goes, so I'm pretty excited for it.
>>381Thank you for introducing me to that encyclopedia, by the way. To be honest, I usually go straight to the children's section in most libraries because that's where they like to put the Japanese comics, haha. Maybe this year I should focus on trying to have more comic books put in libraries.