20 dezembro 2005

Calvin & Hobbes



Calvin and Hobbes was a much-loved comic strip where Calvin (the kid) imagined that his toy tiger (Hobbes) was his best friend, and talked to him (although it is open to different interpretations). Then they would go on adventures, and discuss life, and that. It finished about ten years ago, with a happy ending. Both the characters remarked on how the world was full of possibilities, and sledged off into the snow. This is a doctored strip that was distributed around the Internet as though it was the genuine last episode (although this was not its author's intention).

In it, Calvin appears to have been prescribed Attention Deficit Disorder drugs (a contentious point in America, where many unruly or hyperactive children seem to be prescribed them as a matter of course. The commonly-perceived effect of ADD drugs is that they leech a child of any character or enthusiasm about the world). Then, at the end, as Calvin has stopped imagining, Hobbes in effect dies, and becomes just a stuffed toy again. Many people have read a broader meaning into it beyond that of it being purely a comment on ADD drugs: that the loss of our imaginations and belief in the endless possibilities of the world is an inevitable part of crossing from childhood into adulthood.

It is the saddest comic strip ever.

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