theavc:

Calvin And Hobbes embodied the voice of the lonely child

Calvin didn’t have trouble focusing on the world around him, he had trouble reconciling himself to the fact that the world around him was such a disappointment. The reason the strip appealed to people both young and old is because Calvin was feeling underwhelmed at a college graduate level. It’s not unheard of for children to experience this, particularly those who are more sensitive to their surroundings, and for many it was a relief to know that seeing the world without the luster and facade constantly created for us wasn’t so unusual. 

“Calvin made it okay to be disheartened and disappointed by life and normalized the inherent loneliness that childhood can bring.”

 He was there for us as we grew up and while we learned that things were capable of getting so much better and so much worse as we experienced puberty and beyond, he was still mired in the first grade, raging against the machine.

Full story at avclub.com

I connected instantly with Calvin and Hobbes. The first Calvin and Hobbes book was the first book I read cover to cover. I was kind of an only child since my siblings were so much older than me and had all moved out by the late 80s. I used to carry my pound puppy with me everywhere, and brought it to school until 3rd grade. Besides carrying around my favorite stuffed animal, I identified with the daydreams Calvin had, dealing with the Moes at school, avoiding taking baths. It felt almost like it was written just for me. I still feel like the comics are intensely personal, that’s the power of Bill Watterson’s imagination and delivery of Calvin and Hobbes.