An alternate Calvin and Hobbes ending, or in which I am indignant

[neigedens]

My local newspaper has been rerunning the strip since September or so, so it's been more on my mind lately. I found this at the GAFF forums. It's a supposed fan's ending to the strip. I'm curious as to what other people may think of it.

To me, it seems a superficial ending, not just because of its conclusion about pills or whatever. It seems like it's trying to make a very "deep" point about "growing up," but it doesn't really succeed. I mean, Calvin doesn't have to grow up! He's Calvin! He was never really meant to be a literal six year-old, was he?

And also the fake strip's assumption that if Calvin stops "believing" in Hobbes or whatever, Hobbes stops being real. Yeah right! Hobbes can't not exist! He's Hobbes! Watterson never made it clear what exactly Hobbes was supposed to be, and this strip limits the real ones' world so much by clearly defining and placing Hobbes into a little box.

But on a completely different subject: fic commentaries? 'Cos if anyone's interested I'd be happy to do one.

Comments

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I thought it was bitter and cynical. It worked quite well on its own terms, which were savagely negative. But if you have seen the last Calvin and Hobbes Sunday, with its marvelous "let's go exploring" conclusion, you would have understood that Watterson, who often voiced bitterness and cynicism himself, had decided to vote for life and joy. The person who did this must be deeply unhappy. The Italian writer and patriot Giuseppe Mazzini once put it memorably: "Anyone who can deny God in front of a night sky full of stars must be either greatly unhappy, or greatly guilty". And I do not think that without its underlying sense of joy, energy and fun (which admittedly sometimes lay very under indeed) C&H would have been such a monumental hit and touched us all so much.