Dear Lukas (if I may), I suspect you weren’t anticipating a formal response to your Comic Book Resources piece “10 Ways Calvin and Hobbes Has Aged Poorly”. It’s not that kind of piece. Actually, my first response was quite informal. I tweeted that you’re a loser. I’m sure you’re not a loser, Lukas, so forgive me for that — but you did a very good impersonation of a loser in your piece.
The best one was “Dinosaurs actually had feathers, which contradicts Calvin’s imagination”. Imagine a small child’s imagination not being exactly accurate with regard to science! Do better, Calvin!
Are we sure that it was meant seriously? It reads to me like a parody of the modern assumption that everything today is so much better than it was 40 years ago. Admittedly, it's very hard to write a satirical column these days: reality tends to overtake it before it's even completed.
"I struggle to accept that you’re so dense as to believe in this nauseating combination of complacent presentism and totalistic moralism. But the alternative is that you battered out this unlovely listicle to wind people up — to problematise a much-loved creation just to tarnish people’s day."
This 360 noscope headshot of a rebuttal made my day. Thank you. Listicles like this are parasitic, there's no other way to describe them. They're harmful to the host body, can't live without it, and offer nothing in return.
When someone is bitching in print that Calvin’s mom is, well, a mom, or complaining about the “sexism” of a cartoon six-year-old, then some reflection on one’s career - and life choices more generally - seems in order.
And your point about the author contributing to his own redundancy is far from trivial.
As I’ve said at my place, regarding io9, the more insufferably woke the site has become, the more generic and unwritten it feels. By which I mean, it was once possible to stumble across lengthy articles on very niche pop-culture subjects, written with an affectionate expertise. Now, however, it's all but impossible to differentiate one contributor from another. The site doesn’t read as if anyone in particular wrote it. It’s flavourless. It might as well be generated by an algorithm. And so, I rarely visit.
Chat gpt just wrote this: Calvin and Hobbes,” created by Bill Watterson, is a beloved comic strip that continues to be cherished by many readers. However, there are some aspects of the comic that may not resonate as well with contemporary audiences. Here are ten ways in which “Calvin and Hobbes” may have aged poorly:
1. Gender Representation: The comic often reflects traditional gender roles, with Calvin’s mother typically portrayed as the caregiver and housekeeper, while his father is shown as the breadwinner.
2. Lack of Diversity: The characters in “Calvin and Hobbes” are predominantly white, and there is little representation of racial or ethnic diversity.
3. Environmental Awareness: While conservation and environmentalism were not as prominent in popular discourse during the comic’s publication, today’s readers may notice a lack of emphasis on environmental issues.
4. Use of Language: Some language and expressions used in the comic may be considered outdated or insensitive by modern standards.
5. Treatment of Mental Health: Calvin’s behavior, often characterized by defiance and disregard for authority, may not align with contemporary understandings of childhood behavioral issues or mental health.
6. Attitudes Toward Education: Calvin’s disdain for school and authority figures may not resonate as positively with today’s emphasis on the importance of education.
7. Parental Supervision: Calvin’s parents allow him a significant amount of independence, including letting him roam freely outdoors without much supervision, which may not reflect current parenting norms.
8. Consumerism and Materialism: The comic occasionally portrays consumerism and materialism in a humorous light, which may clash with contemporary critiques of consumer culture.
9. Gender Dynamics: Some of Calvin’s behavior toward Susie, such as his frequent teasing and attempts to assert dominance, may be seen as reinforcing negative gender stereotypes.
10. Technology: The comic predates the widespread use of technology such as smartphones and the internet, so it may feel dated in its portrayal of daily life and activities.
While “Calvin and Hobbes” remains a classic and cherished comic strip, it’s important to recognize that its portrayal of certain themes and topics may not fully align with contemporary perspectives.
I've never read "Comic Book Resources" - it seems like some very shallow literary criticism from the excerpts you cite. It's obvious that this is more amygdala hijacking, more attention whoring to garner page clicks and "reader engagement". Ernest Hemingway likened literary critics to sharks - and he had a Thompson sub-machinegun in his boat to deal with them - the sharks, not the critics - but if some of the latter had got within range, who knows?
I'm culling my monstrous collection of books - I've got too damned many of them - and alongside Arthur Conan Doyle and Mark Twain, and William Vollman and Neal Stephenson, inter alia, my anthologies of Calvin and Hobbes, and Berkely Breathed's Bloom County also made the cut, and stay. Breathed made some rather prescient strips about Trump in the 1980s - see https://www.theringer.com/2016/7/14/16039874/donald-trump-bloom-county-slumlord-73a0f5ca3c17. And it turns out that Harper Lee, who wrote "To Kill A Mockingbird", a book which seems to predispose law students towards a career in criminal defense law (case in point: me), was a huge fan, who carried on a correspondence with Breathed over a period of 14 years. So comic strips do age well - or certainly can. Lukas is out to lunch on this, of course he's making bank on his outrage-generating ephemera, but electrons and web pages are far less durable than paper...
The best one was “Dinosaurs actually had feathers, which contradicts Calvin’s imagination”. Imagine a small child’s imagination not being exactly accurate with regard to science! Do better, Calvin!
At first I thought poor Lukas was an ultramontanist taking aim at the bitter fruits of the reformation...
Are we sure that it was meant seriously? It reads to me like a parody of the modern assumption that everything today is so much better than it was 40 years ago. Admittedly, it's very hard to write a satirical column these days: reality tends to overtake it before it's even completed.
"I struggle to accept that you’re so dense as to believe in this nauseating combination of complacent presentism and totalistic moralism. But the alternative is that you battered out this unlovely listicle to wind people up — to problematise a much-loved creation just to tarnish people’s day."
This 360 noscope headshot of a rebuttal made my day. Thank you. Listicles like this are parasitic, there's no other way to describe them. They're harmful to the host body, can't live without it, and offer nothing in return.
I’m pretty confident that AI wrote that piece.
When someone is bitching in print that Calvin’s mom is, well, a mom, or complaining about the “sexism” of a cartoon six-year-old, then some reflection on one’s career - and life choices more generally - seems in order.
And your point about the author contributing to his own redundancy is far from trivial.
As I’ve said at my place, regarding io9, the more insufferably woke the site has become, the more generic and unwritten it feels. By which I mean, it was once possible to stumble across lengthy articles on very niche pop-culture subjects, written with an affectionate expertise. Now, however, it's all but impossible to differentiate one contributor from another. The site doesn’t read as if anyone in particular wrote it. It’s flavourless. It might as well be generated by an algorithm. And so, I rarely visit.
I just assumed the whole piece at CBR was AI generated. It had no soul.
Chat gpt just wrote this: Calvin and Hobbes,” created by Bill Watterson, is a beloved comic strip that continues to be cherished by many readers. However, there are some aspects of the comic that may not resonate as well with contemporary audiences. Here are ten ways in which “Calvin and Hobbes” may have aged poorly:
1. Gender Representation: The comic often reflects traditional gender roles, with Calvin’s mother typically portrayed as the caregiver and housekeeper, while his father is shown as the breadwinner.
2. Lack of Diversity: The characters in “Calvin and Hobbes” are predominantly white, and there is little representation of racial or ethnic diversity.
3. Environmental Awareness: While conservation and environmentalism were not as prominent in popular discourse during the comic’s publication, today’s readers may notice a lack of emphasis on environmental issues.
4. Use of Language: Some language and expressions used in the comic may be considered outdated or insensitive by modern standards.
5. Treatment of Mental Health: Calvin’s behavior, often characterized by defiance and disregard for authority, may not align with contemporary understandings of childhood behavioral issues or mental health.
6. Attitudes Toward Education: Calvin’s disdain for school and authority figures may not resonate as positively with today’s emphasis on the importance of education.
7. Parental Supervision: Calvin’s parents allow him a significant amount of independence, including letting him roam freely outdoors without much supervision, which may not reflect current parenting norms.
8. Consumerism and Materialism: The comic occasionally portrays consumerism and materialism in a humorous light, which may clash with contemporary critiques of consumer culture.
9. Gender Dynamics: Some of Calvin’s behavior toward Susie, such as his frequent teasing and attempts to assert dominance, may be seen as reinforcing negative gender stereotypes.
10. Technology: The comic predates the widespread use of technology such as smartphones and the internet, so it may feel dated in its portrayal of daily life and activities.
While “Calvin and Hobbes” remains a classic and cherished comic strip, it’s important to recognize that its portrayal of certain themes and topics may not fully align with contemporary perspectives.
https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2024/04/22
Every strip renewed daily
>When you write such a lazy and opportunistic piece you’re also conditioning readers to expect that sort of prose.
And also, in a fully literal sense, conditioning LLMs to extrude that sort of prose.
I've never read "Comic Book Resources" - it seems like some very shallow literary criticism from the excerpts you cite. It's obvious that this is more amygdala hijacking, more attention whoring to garner page clicks and "reader engagement". Ernest Hemingway likened literary critics to sharks - and he had a Thompson sub-machinegun in his boat to deal with them - the sharks, not the critics - but if some of the latter had got within range, who knows?
I'm culling my monstrous collection of books - I've got too damned many of them - and alongside Arthur Conan Doyle and Mark Twain, and William Vollman and Neal Stephenson, inter alia, my anthologies of Calvin and Hobbes, and Berkely Breathed's Bloom County also made the cut, and stay. Breathed made some rather prescient strips about Trump in the 1980s - see https://www.theringer.com/2016/7/14/16039874/donald-trump-bloom-county-slumlord-73a0f5ca3c17. And it turns out that Harper Lee, who wrote "To Kill A Mockingbird", a book which seems to predispose law students towards a career in criminal defense law (case in point: me), was a huge fan, who carried on a correspondence with Breathed over a period of 14 years. So comic strips do age well - or certainly can. Lukas is out to lunch on this, of course he's making bank on his outrage-generating ephemera, but electrons and web pages are far less durable than paper...
Very funny and beautifully written.
Also, does anyone have a collection of the cartoons? Some of those strips don’t read quite right.