The U.S. Postal Service has a habit of issuing postage stamps that honor important but often obscure people in the arts, which is probably a good thing if it focuses attention on the lesser-known who deserve to be better-known.
But this year, the USPS will be commemorating a work of art that is worthy, well-known and wildly popular: the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip.
Launched by cartoonist Bill Watterson in 1985 and discontinued a decade later when Watterson called it quits, Calvin and Hobbes is beloved and sorely missed to this day, as a quick perusal of the humor section in any bookstore makes clear.
The strip focuses on the often extraordinary adventures and fanciful musings of six-year-old Calvin and his stuffed tiger Hobbes, who miraculously comes to life whenever the two characters are alone together.
Watterson’s strip has been widely praised for its characters, dialogue and storylines, but above all for its dazzling artwork, which elevated it to the front rank of great comic strips.
As Pulitzer Prize winner Art Spiegelman wrote when The Complete Calvin and Hobbes was published in 2005, Watterson's strip combined "the richly conceived characters and efficient drawing of Peanuts with the visual virtuosity and linguistic playfulness of Pogo and Krazy Kat" in a strip that is still missed by millions of people.
The postage stamp to be issued this year is part of a set that also honors Beetle Bailey, Dennis the Menace, Archie and Garfield. All of them deserve recognition, but none more so than the masterpiece that was - and is - Calvin and Hobbes.
But this year, the USPS will be commemorating a work of art that is worthy, well-known and wildly popular: the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip.
Launched by cartoonist Bill Watterson in 1985 and discontinued a decade later when Watterson called it quits, Calvin and Hobbes is beloved and sorely missed to this day, as a quick perusal of the humor section in any bookstore makes clear.
The strip focuses on the often extraordinary adventures and fanciful musings of six-year-old Calvin and his stuffed tiger Hobbes, who miraculously comes to life whenever the two characters are alone together.
Watterson’s strip has been widely praised for its characters, dialogue and storylines, but above all for its dazzling artwork, which elevated it to the front rank of great comic strips.
As Pulitzer Prize winner Art Spiegelman wrote when The Complete Calvin and Hobbes was published in 2005, Watterson's strip combined "the richly conceived characters and efficient drawing of Peanuts with the visual virtuosity and linguistic playfulness of Pogo and Krazy Kat" in a strip that is still missed by millions of people.
The postage stamp to be issued this year is part of a set that also honors Beetle Bailey, Dennis the Menace, Archie and Garfield. All of them deserve recognition, but none more so than the masterpiece that was - and is - Calvin and Hobbes.
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