In the mid-noughties, back when attention spans were legit and one actually read the newspaper in its physical form, I had a particular route map. Front Page, Sports Pages, Local, International, Op-eds followed by the Bombay/Calcutta Times. No, I wasn’t ogling at socialites or actors on the front page but headed straight to page 2 which would unfold Sudoko, Kakuro, the crossword, a couple of word games, and a host of comic strips. The Wizard of Id, Hagar the Horrible, Dennis the Menace, Beetle Bailey, Garfield, Dilbert and a couple of more that my ageing grey cells refuse to recall. But most, notably this was also my introduction to Calvin & Hobbes.
Calvin by Martine Leavitt uses the original premise of the much-loved comic series by Bill Watterson, with the titular protagonist dealing with schizophrenia. Born on the day the last C&H strip was published, he owned a plush toy tiger that wore out during excessive washing. Calvin is smart but loves to procrastinate, talks to an imaginary tiger named Hobbes, and is a bit of an outcast at school, except for his OG BFF Susie. He’s on track to study neuroscience at college before his struggles with schizophrenia have necessitated undergoing medical treatment. He’s also dealing with the fact that Susie’s sorta abandoned him with Hobbes acting as the only form of company. Calvin believes that the panacea for all of his problems is to seek out Bill Watterson and request him to write one strip of C&H, without Hobbes in it. He believes this would cure him and the entire text is written as a long-form letter to Watterson himself. In order to fulfill his wish, Calvin sets out on a dangerous trip across the frozen Lake Erie, with Susie refusing to let him do this alone. What follows is a whirlwind, pun intended, journey across ice and snowy landscapes with some peanuts, raisins, cookies, and helpful strangers along the way. At the root of it, this is a YA novel and holds true to the essence of the genre.
The read: Most importantly, this read is supposed to be a really accurate description of someone suffering from schizophrenia and helps you understand the daily struggles with it. This also makes you wonder how much of the plot actually happened or was simply a hallucination until the somewhat let-down of an ending puts things into place without needing to do so. The text is written in a screenplay-like manner, with everything driven through conversations between the trio. This is a very straightforward read with the broad theme being that of the constant questioning of reality. While the concept is novel and a big pull for fans of the original comic, Calvin leaves you slightly dissatisfied. Like I genuinely wish the ending was open-ended, with the reader questioning reality just like the protagonist. If nothing, it has only convinced me that my next big splurge in 2022 is a boxed C & H set.
Trivia: In the years since the last strip was published in 1995, Watterson quite famously retreated to a private life in north-east Ohio, where has carefully guarded the rights to his creation, refusing to license them or revisit them creatively. Even his own publishers have a hard time getting in touch with him, as the story goes. Quite remarkably in 2013, Watterson agreed to be interviewed by Mental Floss and you can read the entire conversation here.
Documentation:
Book: Calvin
Author: Martine Leavitt
Year of Release: 2015
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux