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| © Bill Watterson (The Complete Calvin and Hobbes Book 1, 360) |
Bill Watterson created a powerful relationship between Calvin and Hobbes. Some critics are eager to define Hobbes as an imaginary friend, but Watterson doesn’t subscribe to that blunt definition. Instead, he argues that Hobbes is a part of Calvin’s reality. The entire strip is Calvin’s reality and thus Hobbes is as real to Calvin—and arguably to the regular readers of the strip—as are his parents. Watterson said it best: "My strip is about private realities, the magic of imagination, and the specialness of certain friendships." (Tenth 11) This reference to “private realities” is part of Watterson’s genius in the strip. He invites readers into Calvin’s private reality and at the same time encourages them to experience their own. In many ways, Watterson—through Calvin and Hobbes—validates the readers’ own private realities. The idea that our own private realities have value becomes a shared experience.
It seems obvious to say Hobbes is critical to the strip, but Hobbes value cannot be overstated. Heit sums it up this way:
The friendship between Calvin and Hobbes is the single most important feature in the strip’s world, a narrative anchor that holds open the possibility that Calvin can look beyond his own interests. Hobbes’ presence ensures that there exists another perspective for most of Calvin’s experiences, which in turn expands the meanings into which the trip ventures. Moreover, because Calvin’s imagination is the genesis of this structuring relationship, their ability to challenge one another’s conceptions of the self constitutes a crucial entry point into the text. (Heit 127)
Watterson’s creation of Hobbes and the development of Hobbes throughout the ten-year run of the daily comic strip, is an essential component of the strips appeal. Hobbes repeatedly serves as a counterpoint to Calvin’s current dilemma, rant, or scheme. The idea that Calvin and Hobbes can disagree and hold each other in opposition and surprise each other is both a testament to Watterson’s imaginative genius, but also a declaration in favor of a child’s imagination and a trigger for the reader’s imagination, giving the reader permission to play because in order to fully appreciate Calvin and Hobbes she must suspend disbelief. The suspension of disbelief is rewarded by entertainment, joy, and affirmation that appreciating an “imaginary” friendship is valid.