Comics

The kids, especially the boy, have been getting cartoon anthologies from the library, mostly Calvin & Hobbes.

It’s better when cartoonists hang it up when they’re done with the strip, rather than dragging an idea on for too many years (paging Mary Worth), or aging their characters (Lynn Johnston has managed this somewhat successfully in “For Better or Worse.”) Can you imagine if Bill Watterson had made Calvin grow up?

Calvin would now be a teenager, attending an alternative high school for troubled kids, doped up on Ritalin for his obvious ADHD and something stronger (lithium?) for schizophrenia—the inability to distinguish fantasy from reality. His mom would be overweight and selling real estate; his dad, long gone. Ooh, lots of comic possibilities there.