"Calvin and Hobbes" Is Awesome

Bill Watterson's "Calvin and Hobbes" is a masterpiece of an artform that has too few masterpieces (especially today...have you tried to read anything in the "funnys" section of your local paper lately?) The strip was a perfect distilation of childhood, had a wonderful art style of its own, and it was often laugh out loud funny. Its an American classic, and I'm a proud owner of the gorgeous collection "The Complete Calvin and Hobbes," which came out a year or so ago.

One thing that's always been admirable about Watterson is that he refused to sell out his creation. He could have licensed the shit out of "C+H," slapping the characters on T-Shirts, Lunch boxes, toys, stickers, and other junk. But Watterson refused- he wanted to keep the characters in their medium and felt that an image of Calvin on a T-shirt would strip him of his complexity as a character, something that happened with the hugely popular and totally unauthorized "Pissing Calvin" images that seem to be plastered to one out of every three semis you pass on highways. Sure Calvin is "mischevious." But he's also a sweet, funny, naiive kid with a big heart. Watterson, rightly, hated the "pissing Calvin" images.

I always respected Watterson's integrity, but have also been curious about what "Calvin and Hobbes" would look like animated. There was a rumor a couple years back that Watterson was going to make a film based on the strip, and that he was going to be in charge of the animaiton. The rumor may have been totally false, or the project may have just never gotten off the ground, but in any case it never happened. Which is why I'm so impressed by this video I'm posting below. An Italian animation student made it as a class project, and it's damn near perfect as far as the animation goes. The voice work is a bit odd, but everyone has their own idea of what Calvin should sound like in their heads...another good reason for Watterson not have gone ahead with the project. The guy knows what he's doing with his amazing creation. He did the strip for ten years, ended it perfectly, and never let it become an annoying product. He's an artist, and he was right to protect his creation.

That said, this is pretty damn cool, especially for a student project: