2025 marks the 30th anniversary since the hit comic strip Calvin and Hobbes ended. It would be an understatement to say the series is anything but a legend in the comic strip world. It still continues to draw in new readers, and bring back old ones, and revolutionized the way a comic strip could be written as it continues to influence other strips and American culture to this day. 

Bill Watterson, the author of Calvin and Hobbes ran the strip from 1985 to 1995. Even though it only ran for ten years (unlike other popular strips like Garfield, which have run since 1978) it holds up to the test of time as the series still manages to connect with readers.

Calvin and Hobbes has resonated with many readers within their own lives. It was constantly pushing boundaries of what a comic strip could be, showing that a comic strip could be more than simple puns and jokes. It redefined how a comic strip could be narrated, as it is told in the perspective of a single character. 

Watterson manages complex shifts between Calvin’s imagination and fantasy and between his own reality. Take Hobbes, for example. He’s frequently shown interacting with Calvin as a playmate and a stuffed animal, defying what should be possible as a stuffed animal. 

Watterson frequently plays with the idea of Calvin’s reality, and according to an interview with Honk magazine, Watterson tries to get the reader to be “swept up into Calvin’s perspective and ignore adult perspectives.”

The way Watterson handles this idea of the reader getting swept up in Calvin’s perspective is phenomenal. He sucks in the reader with Calvin’s captivating imagination, and writes it with such expertise it’s almost as if a real six-year-old wrote the story. In one of the strips, it shows Calvin struggling against green globs of aliens, but in reality, it was just his mom’s food that he didn’t like. It’s something a real six year old, something that the readers have done before, and that’s what gives the strip its unique connection to reality which allows readers to connect to the material on a deeper and more authentic level.

Calvin’s constantly changing imagination is what keeps the readers hooked. Even Calvin’s continuous personas and storylines like Spaceman Spiff, Stupendous Man, and his never-ending obsession with dinosaurs and snowmen have something new every time. Watterson uses Calvin’s reality to make new scenarios, which become new adventures for him and Hobbes.

Speaking of Hobbes, he’s special. If Calvin is there, Hobbes is too. In each strip, there’s something new every single time. Even the continuation or repeated story arcs like the camping trips always have some new adventure Calvin and Hobbes to go on. The strip can get very repetitive because the same formula is used for most of the strips. Something happens in Calvin’s life, he rants, then him and Hobbes do something fun, repeat. But somehow, the strip never gets old.

Watterson put a new spin on comic strip humor, straying away from the normal joke and clear punchline to more ambiguous, advanced humor. Some of the comics have fleshed out jokes revolving around Calvin ranting about taxes or the economic and political state of the world. As readers grow older, the more complicated and advanced humor begins to make more sense.  But for the younger readers of the series who may not understand the jokes, the strip still captivated them with its eye-catching artstyle. 

The art style of this series is nothing short of amazing. The watercolour artstyle made it stand out against other Sunday color comic strips. It was part of Watterson’s craft, and the meticulous tone and color choice gave it a bold, yet simple and mellow look. Even the Monday-Saturday black and white ink style made Watterson’s stories pop: strokes were heavily bolded and emphasized giving it life that other strips didn’t have. 

Watterson ended the strip in 1995. He wanted to end the series when the quality of the strip was still “outstanding.” He gave the comic an almost poetic ending. It ends the same way it begins: Calvin and Hobbes riding on a mountain as they embark on another endless adventure.