Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for November 11, 1987

I don’t know why Alley Oop has been kept going for 70 years. I feel it should have died with Lee Harvey Oswald.

I am glad Watterson ended this strip at its peak instead of trying to shoehorn unfunny and dated material in like so many other cartoonists.

This is particularly funny because the strip shows just a bunch of xeroxed talking heads.

I like how he tried to break that comic barrier, I really like “Pearls Before Swine” because it does it all the time.

Insert shameless plug here: If you like Calvin and Hobbes, got read “Pearls Before Swine” Patsis is the best comic strip out right now in my own opinion.

Ink Pen and Sherman’s Lagoon are also pretty fantastic and well worth following. Though I disagree with Derkins – I wish that Watterson had kept at it until the quality actually did start to decline.

(And I think the answer is no).

Is this the one and only mention of Grandpa?

I know other people who take the comics pretty seriously. . . .

I’ve worked for Xerox for over 15 years now.

Probably about as meta as Calvin and Hobbes ever get.

RUN FOR YOUR LIFE, GRANDPA!!!!!

Oh, the irony.

My great-grandfather used to read the funnies every day. He called them The Intellectual Pages. Then he turned to the obituaries to plan his week.

Does grandpa remember when even the good ones had abysmal lettering?

Is anyone else reminded of Girl vs Pig?

Ah, the Great Newspaper Comic Size Imbroglio of 1987 (or thereabouts)…

I guess it’s to Watterson’s credit that this was really the ONLY time he brought it up in-strip, even though he obviously cared about the issue a great deal (see his writings in the 10th Anniversary C&H compilation, which make for great reading). Meanwhile, around this same year, Berke Breathed had constructed an entire story arc around it, with the Bloom County regulars going on strike (and getting badly/hilariously replaced).

And Watterson did sort of win at the end, in that he got the syndicates to (VERY grudgingly) accept a new Sunday size scheme for C&H that afforded him more creative usage of space.