I was talking about this blog with Dennis over the Thanksgiving weekend and came upon a surprising realization.... despite listing many things Mike loved, we hadn't yet touched on his kinship with Calvin and Hobbes. This is a great picture, which is on the cover of Bill Watterson's first collection of comics, titled simply: 'Calvin and Hobbes'.
I have to say that Mike's interest in this particular comic pre-dates me. By the time I was around, his complete collection of the anthologies of this long-running comic looked well-loved but were no longer in daily circulation. Mike showed me some of his art work, where he had drawn and painted some of his favourite Calvin and Hobbes antics. Dennis told me he made a t-shirt for Mike, cut and paste from two separate sketches, showing Calvin and Hobbes running towards each other, arms outstretched.
In searching for the picture above, I came across the Calvin and Hobbes Ultimate Quiz (click on text). I'd be curious to know how Mike would do -- given his memory and geeky interest, I'd guess pretty close to perfect. In anyone gives this a try, let me know what it's like.
I think Lucas and Emily will one day get a kick out of reading about Calvin's adventures (FYI Mike-ism: "get a kick out of..."). It's yet another way to keep their connection with their Daddy. So, that's my new plan. Read Calvin and Hobbes at bed-time (sometimes). Lucas is going to love it and very likely suffer from many no-life attacks from the antics of this crazy, precocious, imaginative 6-year old kid. As Dennis listed off some of Mike's alter-egos in Hallowe'en costumes, I imagine Calvin is another one of them.
The T-Shirt was Joan's idea but I made it. I photo-copied the pictures, enlarged them and then traced them onto the shirt with a black magic marker.
ReplyDeleteAs I remember, Calvin & Hobbes were running full tilt towards one another, but in true Calvin & Hobbes fashion, they were each looking the other way and were unwittingly about to crash into one another.
Dennis