The Sven Journal

I used to read a lot when I was young younger. This was back in the day when my allotted computer time was restricted to one hour, and reading two chapters of a book was considered homework. Oh the labour!

One of the many joys I had to escape the trudge of homework was, ironically, more reading. Specifically, reading strip comics. I would go to the public library almost every weekend (after swim lessons and a McDonald’s happy meal) with my daddio and always take out one of the comic books. Garfield, Snoopy, Family Circus, and later on The Far Side were the popular ones. But there was one comic I read more often than any other, and that was Bill Watterson’s Calvin & Hobbes. C&H defined my childhood, along with dinosaurs. And Lego.

Unfortunately, one day I was corrupted by the overwhelming triumph of the interwebs, and then suddenly my childhood was gone. In fact, I remember the very day my childhood slipped away: it was upon viewing this pic.

Childhood. Gone. Forever.

It’s a tremendously sad business losing one’s youth to an image of a wooden (hehe, wooden) boy hittin’ the nasty with some blue haired chick…

However, I still manage to find my inner kid every time I open up Calvin & Hobbes. We own every book and volume of C&H, and will often just go back through and read them all.

Never have I ever met anyone as cool as Calvin, nor anyone as wise as Hobbes. Together they are the most intelligent, sophisticated and remarkable duo. Every time I read the last published line, “It’s a magical world, Hobbes ol’ Buddy… let’s go exploring!” I always get this twinge in my chest of utter sadness knowing that it’s over. But it is one of those things that will always stay with me. We will grow and change as individuals, the people in our lives will enter and leave, but at least I know that there will forever be that one permanent entity. It’s nice being able to 100% rely on something. The Calvin & Hobbes strips will always be printed, and will always have a place in my heart.

Thanks Bill.

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