A few months ago, a Calvin and Hobbes strip from 1994 circulated online, reportedly written by Alan Moore and illustrated by David Gibbons, the creative team behind Watchmen. Fans' hopes were quickly dashed when the strip was revealed to be a clever forgery—neither Moore or Gibbons ever contributed to the strip.
Calvin and Hobbes was created by Bill Watterson and ran for a little over a decade in newspapers around the country. The strip followed the adventures of 6-year-old hyper-intelligent Calvin and his best friend Hobbes, an anthropomorphic tiger that only Calvin could talk to. The strip’s mixture of childhood antics with deep, philosophical themes proved a winning formula with fans, critics and even academics. Although the strip ended 26 years ago, reprints can still be found in newspapers; books collecting the strips can be bought in bookstores. Watterson was notorious for refusing to license the characters for animation and merchandising. However, he was open to other creators, such as Berkley Breathed, using Calvin and Hobbes in Breathed’s Bloom County strip. Earlier this year, a Calvin and Hobbes strip, allegedly from November 14th, 1994 and created by the Watchmen team of Alan Moore and David Gibbons surfaced. However, it has turned out to be a fake, albeit a clever one.
The strip circulated around social media, gathering attention until Brian Cronin addressed the issue in his “Comic Book Legends Revealed” column on Comic Book Resources. The strip, which ran in color, shows Calvin, now an adult, in a crater on the moon with Hobbes. A tearful Calvin hugs Hobbes, lamenting the loss of his family, before concluding Hobbes is not real. Hobbes may not be real, but neither is this strip. It is a clever mashup of Calvin and Hobbes and a classic Alan Moore story, “For the Man Who Has Everything,” which initially ran in 1985’s Superman Annual #11, also illustrated by Gibbons. Whoever created the strip used photo altering tools to make Superman look like Calvin, and his “son” look like Hobbes. Dialogue was altered as well.
Calvin and Hobbes may seem like the last thing Alan Moore and David Gibbons would collaborate on, but the mashup makes sense. Calvin and Hobbes was a deceptively complex strip, hiding life lessons and deep observations on the human condition in a tale about a boy and a tiger. Although his work is much bleaker than Watterson’s, Moore explores such themes in his work as well. Moore and Gibbons are best known as the creative team behind Watchmen, regarded as a book that changed what the genre was capable of doing; Calvin and Hobbes enjoys a similar reputation. Calvin and Hobbes and Watchmen have also both attracted a great deal of academic attention, beyond other works in the genre. Finally, both debuted around the same time: Calvin and Hobbes’ first strip ran in November 1985 with Watchmen debuting not long thereafter. Clearly, a number of factors collided in making this strip.
Fans' hopes of a Calvin and Hobbes strip created by Alan Moore and David Gibbons may have been dashed, but the strip highlights not only Calvin and Hobbes’ enduring hold on fans, but the influence of Alan Moore as well.
Source: Comic Book Resources
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