Thursday, September 8, 2022

One More Calvin & Hobbes & Shakespeare

Watterson, Bill. "Whither Goest Thou, Young Rogue?" The Complete Calvin and Hobbes. 3 vols. Vol. 3: 1992-1995.
Kansas City: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2005. 3 May 1992. 42.

Remember when Robin Williams gave us some Shakespeare-esque language in Mork and Mindy (for which, q.v.)? Here, Bill Waterson does the same.


I'm very fond of Calvin & Hobbes, but I don't think the punchline here really pays off. Calvin seems to think that cop shows are full of highfalutin language—like . . . Shakespeare plays are?

It also strikes me as a bit strange that Calvin, complaining about a lack of real dialogue in the show, begins his complaint with "Holy Schlamoly." Perhaps his perspective on realistic dialogue is a bit skewed.

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Wednesday, September 7, 2022

Calvin, Hobbes, and Lear

Watterson, Bill. "Uh Oh." The Complete Calvin and Hobbes. 3 vols. Vol. 3: 1992-1995. Kansas City: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2005. 3 May 1992. 10.

I've often complained that Bill Watterson doesn't work enough Shakespeare in to his Calvin and Hobbes comic.

He does cover the "To be or not to be" soliloquy" (for which, q.v.), but not much else.

But what do you think of this one?  It seems like a pretty clear allusion to King Lear—including the "Off, off, you lendings! come unbutton here" of Act III, scene iv.

Let's tune in to see what happens (click on the image below to enlarge it).


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Bardfilm is normally written as one word, though it can also be found under a search for "Bard Film Blog." Bardfilm is a Shakespeare blog (admittedly, one of many Shakespeare blogs), and it is dedicated to commentary on films (Shakespeare movies, The Shakespeare Movie, Shakespeare on television, Shakespeare at the cinema), plays, and other matter related to Shakespeare (allusions to Shakespeare in pop culture, quotes from Shakespeare in popular culture, quotations that come from Shakespeare, et cetera).

Unless otherwise indicated, quotations from Shakespeare's works are from the following edition:
Shakespeare, William. The Riverside Shakespeare. 2nd ed. Gen. ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997.
All material original to this blog is copyrighted: Copyright 2008-2039 (and into perpetuity thereafter) by Keith Jones.

The very instant that I saw you did / My heart fly to your service; there resides, / To make me slave to it; and, for your sake, / Am I this patient [b]log-man.

—The Tempest