Existentialism in Bill Watterson’s Comic Strips

Bill Watterson is an American cartoonist, author of the famous comic strips “Calvin and Hobbes” syndicated from 1985 to 1995. In these short-stories, Calvin is a creative kid full of childish pranks, and together with Hobbes, a deep-thinking stuffed tiger, they both stand as examples of existentialism in comic strips. Through Calvin’s desperate choices and decisions over many circumstances in the stories, he struggles against a continually changing world. The characters’ actions portray the humanity disorder; people who are controlled in a worthless way of life against a ruthless nature, a cruel world, and inevitable death.

All through these modern comic strips, Bill Watterson created Calvin as a unique character contrasting with any six-year-old and average-age kid. Likewise, John Calvin is the character’s full name, a reference to the Protestant John Calvin, who led the Christian Reform in 1536, breaking away from the tradition to more unorthodox doctrines, such as, predestination and justification by faith alone. In any case, the Calvin character becomes a mischievous and self-indulgent boy, who is forced into making desperate choices to rebel against the world. Calvin wants to explain to people that problems of life and multiple philosophies don’t actually matter, but the type of people we are. Making a choice on how people act and respond, against the world majority – represented by his Dad in the comic – is way more important than simply agreeing to take, or just keep on thinking (The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book).

“Each person is totally free and entirely responsible for what he/she becomes, or does” said Jean-Paul Sartre, an existentialist (Existentialism Is a Humanism). People started to sympathize with Ca...

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... ways, and Bill Watterson’s work of “Calvin and Hobbes” sets a real example of the existentialism (Calvin and Hobbes and the Moral Sense: A Farewell).

Works Cited

Mairet, Philip. “Existentialism Is a Humanism.” Jean-Paul Sartre, 1946. Existentialism from Dostoyevsky to Sartre, ed. Walter Kaufman, Meridian Publishing Company, 1989. February 2005. Web. 12 Mar. 2012.

May, Rollo. “Existential Psychology.” New York: Random House, 1961. Web. 12 Mar. 2012.

Official Website for Calvin and Hobbes comics from 1985 to 1996 by Bill Watterson. Web. 16 Mar. 2012.

Watterson, Bill. “The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book.” Kansas City: Andrews and McMeel, 1995. Web. 12 Mar. 2012.

Wilson, James Q. “Calvin and Hobbes and the Moral Sense: A Farewell.” 1995. Web. 14 Mar. 2012.

Zunjic, Dr. Bob. “The Humanism of Existentialism II.” Jean Paul Sartre, 1946. Web. 12 Mar. 2012.