Calvin minus Hobbes strips posted

In the same vein as Garfield minus Garfield, Jeff Ocean has created a sample of Calvin minus Hobbes. He concludes that unlike Garfield Minus Garfield, Calvin without Hobbes is “sad.”

I won?t be posting any more of these. They?re too sad. If any brave soul wants to take up the project, a la Garfield minus Garfield, have at it.

It looks like it’s not entirely without Hobbes. Jeff Photoshopped in the doll Hobbes where the “alive” Hobbes would normally be.

17 thoughts on “Calvin minus Hobbes strips posted

  1. Please, please Jeff Ocean take these down before you’re forced to. Garfield minus Garfield is meta and simple and it works. Photoshopping is trying to add your own layer of meaning, and it’s not sad, it just misses the point.

  2. The imaginary numbers one (7th down) is actually pretty funny.

    But knowing how much Watterson valued the art side of his commercial endeavour, I can’t imagine him jumping for joy over this sort of tampering with his personal expression.

  3. Is this really necessary? I’m not sure “sad” would be the best way to describe this. All it manages to do is present the inside joke that everyone was already aware of.

  4. Comes across as a messed up kid hanging his doll. Which I guess would be the reality of Calvin & Hobbes.

    Though, I find it amusing.

  5. The guy who made GMG said something about this at a convention and I agree with him. This premise doesn’t work because the key element of Garfield is how the two characters are both interacting with the audience but never (at least verbally) each other. This, like any other strip, is just removing half the dialogue.

    Blondie minus Dagwood! Family Circus minus Billy! This is lazy and is going to get boring very quickly.

  6. Also, GMG makes Jon look like a nut… this makes Calvin look like a kid that plays with his stuffed animal, which… he is. Isn’t that what C+H was – a boy who pretended his stuffed animal was real because he had an awesome imagination and adults were boring and did strips like these?

  7. Ummm… yeah…. I Don’t like it. It’s missing the vast emptiness that Garfield Minus Garfield has. Well, I’m going to go in the opposite vein and start ADDING instead of Subtracting: Who’s in the mood for some Cathy Plus Zippy?

  8. I think this makes people think, in that it shows Calvin for what he really is…a kid simply playing with a stuffed animal. What’s sad is with this depiction, you’re seeing Calvin the way the other characters saw him.
    The biggest way it’s sad, is that I read these strips so many times that I know what the missing dialogue/text is supposed to say.

    This isn’t blasphemy. If nothing else, it’s an analysis of an art form.

  9. Further

    more:

    I am not all-for this new culture of “recontextualizing” everything. You want something that “makes people think?” Try reading the ACTUAL text.

    A culture of illiterates who have the audacity to “RE-contextualize,” you gotta be kidding me.

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