The Commentator

I have never been able to understand why supposedly serious newspapers like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal don’t include the comic sections that are so commonly found in other segments of the American press.  Many people probably feel that comic strips are childish, silly, and unbecoming of such serious forums.  These people are misguided and wrong.  On the contrary, the best comic strips often operate on a higher intellectual level than the opinions page and news magazines of even the most prestigious publications. 

Some comics present fully developed worldviews.  For example, the famous and venerable Peanuts strip presents a view of a cold and unsympathetic world, yet manages to find and appreciate the silver lining of humor and innocence that is also present.  The Far Side, by bestowing human traits and conversation onto animals and inanimate objects, succeeds in pointing out the more absurd aspects of the human condition and self-image.  Other strips offer shrewd and witty commentary on politics, society, family life and the American workplace.  But for me, the most profound and exalted comic of all is Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes, which ran from 1985-1995 in newspapers across the country and has been enshrined in a collection of books.  

Calvin and Hobbes chronicles the life of its main characters and namesakes, the imaginative six-year-old Calvin and his stuffed pet tiger Hobbes.  Calvin navigates life as a first grader, interacting with his parents, teacher, neighbor, bullies, classmates, babysitter, and several other recurring characters.  In addition, the strip presents a picture of Calvin’s inner life as he imagines himself alternatively as a space explorer, a dinosaur, a private detective, an inventor, and the super hero “Stupendous Man,” among other alter egos.  Much of the humor arises from the clashes between Calvin’s imagination and the “real world.”

However, the most interesting clash between these two realities comes from the strip’s second main character, the stuffed tiger Hobbes.  To most observers, Hobbes appears as a limp and raggedy child’s plaything.  From Calvin’s perspective, things are different; Hobbes stands erect, walks around, pounces, throws snowballs, and engages in sophisticated conversation.  He complements the rambunctious Calvin with his feline wisdom and detachment.  Many simplistic readers think that the animated Hobbes is a figment of Calvin’s imagination.  Other interpreters of this type believe that he is magical, only coming to life when Calvin is around. 

The comic’s author dismisses both of these viewpoints.  In the Tenth Anniversary Edition, Watterson writes that; “The nature of Hobbes’s reality doesn’t really interest me, and each story goes out of its way to avoid resolving the issue.  Calvin sees Hobbes one way, and everyone else sees Hobbes another way.  I show two versions of reality, and each makes complete sense to the participant who sees it…  Hobbes is more about the subjective nature of reality than about dolls coming to life.”ⁱ  This apparently post-modern statement affirms the validity of both perspectives.  However, I think Watterson’s explanation is too modest, and does not spell out completely the radical statement the strip makes about the nature of reality.ⁱⁱ 

It seems to me that rather than settling for an affirmation of both Calvin and the other characters’ viewpoints, Calvin and Hobbes forces its readers to choose between them and decide which of these mutually exclusive options is more real.  Is the world a boring, mundane, and even cruel place, or is it an exciting, fascinating and fantastic one?  Two elements of the strip lead me to believe that within the world of the comic, Calvin’s worldview is more authentic.  More generally, the portrayals of Calvin’s inner world display bright colors and elaborate artistry.  The portrayals of real life are far less vivid and more minimalist in style.  Furthermore, Hobbes’s persona is too powerful and real to be ignored.  He is too different from Calvin to be a product of the first-grader’s imagination.  If my reading is correct, the subtle message of Calvin and Hobbes is that the world we are used to viewing as “real” may be less authentic than we suppose. 

With this interpretation, Calvin and Hobbes emerges as an existential drama.  Calvin has discovered a world that is more real than the one he was given, and has to struggle to maintain it in the face of challenges.  Rosalyn the babysitter, Moe the bully, and the sensible Susie Derkins all try, in their own way, to convince Calvin to join their mundane world and abandon his imaginings.  Calvin refuses to bow, refuses to come back down to earth and accept a mundane existence.  In the process, he forges his friendship with Hobbes, a friendship that is deeper than any of its real-world counterparts.  This behavior is noble, not delusional.  Rather than admit defeat, Calvin perseveres, seeking out and finding a better reality. 

This brings me to Klal Yisrael.  The above description of one aspect of Calvin’s personalityⁱⁱⁱ reminds me of what we Jews are supposed to be like.  We are enjoined to seek Hashem out when He is to be found and to call upon Him when he is near.^iv  Even if the rest of the world sees secularity, we are supposed to affirm that His glory fills the universe.  When looking at the existence, we are supposed to see a little bit further and dig a little bit deeper, noticing the layers of meaning in the natural world and the significance of the most commonplace actions.  We are supposed to have Calvin-like obstinacy and independence, the determination to confront the universe on Jewish terms in the face of oppressors and naysayers.  

This vision is lofty, and consequently, we easily lose sight of it.  It is for this reason that I value positive interaction with popular culture of the caliber represented by Calvin and Hobbes; and not just because it is 100% free of pritzus and nibbul peh.  We all need periodic reminders of the Jewish vision, and I would submit that these reminders are often more effective when they come from an unexpected place.  We are used to gaining inspiration from the books of the prophets, the mussar shmooze and the kumzitz.  At the same time, because they are so common, it is easy to become desensitized to these sources of spirituality.  Some of the moments that I found most inspiring in my personal experience have happened far away from these settings.  I would hypothesize that these moments were so powerful to me davka because they came out of nowhere and surprised me, shaking me out of complacency.  If this is true, then the generally negative environment that surrounds the positive messages within popular culture actually makes these messages hit harder. 

This observation does not translate into a well-defined shitta about how to integrate popular culture and Torah.  The potential reinforcement of Torah values does not justify viewing problematic material or wasting long hours searching for nuggets of enlightenment in the strangest of places.  In reality, I suspect that most people’s degree of involvement in pop culture has a lot more to do with their personal tastes and predilections than it does with hashkafa, halakha or Torah U’Madda theorizing.  However, any encounter with popular culture, whether it is lechatchila or bedieved, has the potential to spark a rediscovery of Torah values.  In Calvin’s words, at the end of a strip that depicts him digging for dirty rocks, weird roots, and disgusting grubs: “There’s treasure everywhere.”                                 

Mattan Erder is Managing Editor of Kol Hamevaser

ⁱ The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Edition, New York, 1995. Page 22

ⁱⁱ In other venues, Watterson has made statements that conform to the reading I am about to present. See, for example, his 1987 interview in Honk magazine cited in footnote 9 of the Wikipedia Calvin and Hobbes entry.   

ⁱⁱⁱ There are others that are far less heroic. 

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