Calvin: Know what I pray for? Hobbes: What? Calvin: The strength to change what I can, the inability to accept what I can’t, and the incapacity to tell the difference. I have pretty much all of the C&H Collections, except for the Authoritative, which I cannot for the life of me find since my last move. I do love the Tenth Anniversary Book where BW writes about the influences for the characters and has annotations for several comics. For some reason one that always made me laugh was the notes for the comics when Calvin does his book report on bats (with a professional clear plastic binder!) in which he reveals how writing for Calvin is easy since he only needs to know as much as a lazy 6 year old. Of course, after the strips ran he received more information on bats than he ever needed to know. Another once that always has me crack up (even now I'm stifling a laugh thinking about it) is the one where Calvin calls his Dad at work. His Dad naturally freaks out thinking something is wrong, while Calvin frantically tells him he told the teacher he had to go to the bathroom, and asks for the answer to 11 + 7.
It is absolutely amazing how dead on this is. For anyone who has spent time doing a liberal arts degree, or written a report for Government, this is just exquisitely accurate. I actually used variations on this title for every one of my Lit / Communications assignments. I was complimented on my titles frequently. It was hilariously depressing, or depressingly hilarious, depending on my mood on the day.
This always made me laugh. Oh, the humiliation! My favorite of all time. Still makes me laugh 'til I hurt.
In my endless quest to destroy all that brings joy, here is the famous proposed "last" C&H (no, he doesn't die). In other depressing news, for those of you who bought the big "Complete C&H" set, some of the cartoons are edited to be less "mean spirited". Should've kept your original books.
This has always been my favorite for some reason. Also, I can't get over the proposed last strip posted before this. Holy crap is that hilarious and I can't believe I've never seen that. So wrong yet it had me laughing for a good five minutes.