Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for January 01, 2024

New Year, same Calvin. Happy New Year!

Calvin, you could probably begin with a Harry Potter book…..

Happy New Year everyone!

And as soon as Calvin leaves, Dad will turn on the stupid TV and lap up the sleaze and violence—of organized sports!!

Does the little cretin even know how to hold a book??!!

I love the way the TV leaps about enthusiastically.

Good lawyers are like good poker players: they know when to call a bluff.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

AI script writing is not connected to the brightness knob.

Only a few more year before GoT, and you’ll be old enough to watch it by then!

Or better yet, read some comics.

“Should auld acquaintance be forgot

And never brought to mind?

Should auld acquaintance be forgot

And the days of auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear

For auld lang syne

We’ll drink a cup of kindness yet

For the sake of auld lang syne" ~ Rabbie Burns

Calvin acts like reading is a punishment. Reading is a privilege. I couldn’t live without it.

Watterson must have had a lower opinion of TV than Newton Minow.

I’m contemplating Britbox looking for quality programming

What is this thing called “book” that you mention?

Happy New Year to all. Hope it brings good to each of you.

Calvin should start reading more books to improve his reading skills and speed. When he is older, there will be streaming with most shows aimed at preteenies and younger, live action 60’s comic books that need some sort of ridiculous super power or supernatural deus ex machnia and SFX to get it to the credits. The reading skills will be imperative when he settles in for a particularly interesting looking movie or series and finds it is Korean, Scandinavian or German and he has to read the dialogue across the bottom of the screen.

The trouble is our collective hunger is sated with junk food (TV in Calvin’s case).

Happy New Year.

Happy New Year!

Remember the alternative, Calvin.

My one counter to Dad’s point is that the written word has its share of absolute junk as well! (I don’t think there’s any artistic medium that’s immune to it.)

Or you could do what I did over a decade ago, throw out your TV, live in the real world.

Just a note from the future, Calvin…TV programming isn’t any better!

Books contain fluff, violence, sensationalism and sleaze, too.

Not all the shows were violence, sensationalism, and sleaze. Many of us remember the Carol Burnett show, and the likes of Newhart. Warner Brothers cartoons were a Saturday morning staple, offering untold intellectual opportunities! Did you know Elmer Fudd said “Whatta you know… no more buwwets!” in two cartoons, and “West and wewaxation at wast!” in two others. I learned a lot from them and made “West and wewaxation at wast!” my retirement theme half a century later.

Why not watch Family Guy? He’s one of those good ol fashion values! (Of course it’s only the 80’s so you’ll have to wait for it to come out)

Now Calvin is yelling at his kids to put their I-pads down…

When this was written the Great Decline was just beginning.

My parents called the TV the “idiot box” and the radio the “chatterbox”

To start off the new year, Calvin uses his favorite invention, his antigravity TV.

Don’t do it Calvin! I got rid of my television and ended up with over 600 books in my place!

I love the way Watterson draws the TV spazzing in the air.

Somethings never change with time.

Calvin was ahead of his time…. totally brainwashed and addicted to the ‘Boob Tube’ – even back then. Destined to grow up an obedient consumer…

From NotAlwaysRight.Com

I work in a small bookstore’s café.

Customer: “Y’all got any steak?”

Me: “Uh, we have coffee and pastries, sir.”

Customer: “I didn’t ask if you had coffee and pastries. I asked if you had steak.”

Me: “We do not.”

Customer: “But you serve food! All good food places need steak!”

Me: “We’re a café in a bookstore, sir. We only sell a limited range of items.”

He looks around as if noticing he’s in a bookstore for the first time.

Customer: “No wonder y’all don’t serve steak! You’re all a bunch of book-readin’ liberals!” Marches out

Heh, the Dad sounds a lot like my dad in the third panel. I’ve often pictured the Dad even having the same voice as my dad.

And of course, this is also Bill Watterson basically expressing his disdain for television.

You can find plenty of fluff, violence, sensationalism and sleaze in books. Ask your librarian to help you out.

(Only half kidding)

I do both, prime time is coming back new, I did reading and puzzles, also went outside to walk. Commercials for me I read.Happy New Year. I know Calvin is old strips.

If you thought the quality of TV was bad in 1994, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

You know, Dad, there are books full of fluff, violence, sensationalism, and sleaze, too. The medium through which a story is told does not dictate the quality of the story.

Happy new year!!

Did you know that you can now get a TV that really does that? It has limited anti-gravity capability largely powered by hot air. It’s really impressive to see a 72" flat-screen unit jumping around like that. Of course, it also comes with voice recognition and, well, it’s listening to everything said in the room and sending it all up to the servers in the cloud.

I wonder why Calvin’s parents didn’t get him Macmillan Children’s Guide to Endangered Animals (©1993) by Roger Few. He surely would’ve loved it.