Published Oct 25, 2026, 4:00 PM EDT

Calvin must really whip ass at Scrabble

The complex verbosity of Calvin and Hobbes

The Revenge of the Baby-Sat  (1991)"" data-modal-id="single-image-modal" data-modal-container-id="single-image-modal-container" data-img-caption=""Source: Bill Watterson\/Andrews & McMeel"" data-is-feature-img="true"> Bill Watterson's cover art for The Revenge of the Baby-Sat (1991) Source: Bill Watterson/Andrews & McMeel

Calvin and Hobbes came along at just the right time to influence a generation of creators, many of whom would go on to create comic strips of their own. Alongside a couple of other seminal '90s newspaper comics like Bloom County/Outland , C&H 's linework, flexibility, and imagination visibly inspired many of the artists who worked in the 2000s webcomics boom.

Over the course of rereading Calvin and Hobbes , however, I've come to wonder if we don't underrate its effect on 21st-century writing.…