The Pragmatician

I’ve noticed that many J-Bloggers are fans of Calvin and Hobbes, evidenced by the fact that many use a picture of one of the characters as profile image.

As European, where until recently Calbert&Hobbes (Dutch names) were totally unknown, I got to know this fantastic comic strip in an unusual way.

It arrived from a friend in The US, a little torn and with occasional random lines drawn with color pencils.
I wondered out loud why he would think that would be of any interest to me.

The cover had a picture of an amateurishly drawn kid and a walking tiger. It was titled ‘It’s a magical world’.
This was the only reason I even bothered to open it as magic always fascinated me. (don't like Harry Potter though)

I read through the first few comics, closed the book right away, and got on my way to get my friend the book ‘giving presents, for dummies’.

For some reason a few lines from the book flashed through my mind afterwards.
Not knowing how to interpret it, I took the book out of the trash and gave it another shot.
While reading, subconsciously I started nodding along thinking, “that is so true”, “that is so insightful”, that is so funny and eventually giving in, burst out laughing!

I urged friends and family to read this book that made me smile and laugh again and again but no avail.
Whatever prejudices I had against those two poorly drawn creatures, theirs were stronger.

After apologizing for the dummies book I begged my friend to send me some more.
To my great sorrow he told me that the cartoonist of C&H had retired and advised me to read every book slowly and carefully.


A video, a little crude but fun.
Online Archive with many C&H comics.