DETAILS
Let's Go Exploring: Calvin and Hobbes
by Michael Hingston
$11.96
120 pages
ECW Press
Book launch from 2 to 3:30 p.m. Saturday May 12
Audreys Books
10702 Jasper Ave. in Edmonton
It’s not every day that a sitting regional writer in residence has a new book come out during his term in office.
“It’s definitely exciting. The timing is a little bit fortuitous just because the book was written last year. I don’t have control when it comes out. It all worked out,” said Michael Hingston, who is now in just such a position with the release last week of Let’s Go Exploring, already listed as #1 on Audreys Bookstore’s bestseller list. It’s his second title after 2013’s The Dilettantes.
This new book is his examination of one of pop culture’s most enduring drawn duos: Calvin and Hobbes, artist Bill Watterson’s newspaper comic strip that lasted from 1985 to 1995. Calvin was a bored boy with a fertile imagination that offered him an imaginary friend in Hobbes, his stuffed tiger. Together, they fought off dinosaurs, explored strange planets, and generally created all kinds of rambunctious mischief like setting up snowmen to look like there had been a horrible accident. His playful and innocent adventures inspired many to return to child-like wonder while warning others of what parenting a troubled child might be like.
In short, it was fabulous, offering the sort of 30-second amusement that still resonates to this day.
Let’s Go Exploring is part of a new book series called Pop Classics, offered by ECW Press. Essentially, it offers authors the chance to take anything, be it a movie, fictional character, TV show, musician, video game or actor, and expound upon the significance of it at length. Other titles in the series focus on Nicolas Cage, Showgirls, Elvis Costello and Twin Peaks.
“It’s writers basically taking a piece of disposable pop culture and showing why it matters and why it will stand the test of time, more than you might expect it to, I guess,” Hingston said.
Wait. Did he just call Calvin and Hobbes “disposable”?
“It’s literally meant to be disposable. It appeared in the newspaper and then you’d throw it out and there’s a new one the next day,” he continued.
“Newspaper comics are one of the most disposable forms of pop culture, but then Calvin and Hobbes shows up. It’s not the first comic to have lasting value. Part of the appeal … was it made no sense that this thing that was so clever and so well drawn just came and went everyday in the newspapers like it was no big deal. Watterson wouldn’t let himself dilute the quality along that line of reasoning by saying, ‘Who cares? It’s just going to be in the paper for one day and it disappears.’ He never let himself off the hook for that. That kind of juxtaposition is definitely part of the strip’s appeal.”
That appeal spread far and wide with a fanbase that still remembers Dec. 31, 1995 as the day that Calvin and Hobbes tobogganed off into a snowy forest together, Calvin gleefully remarking, “Let’s go exploring!”
That’s just what Hingston is doing here. He veered away from his original book pitch, which he said was a bit generic – “Calvin and Hobbes is awesome” – so he dug deep to really explore the comic: its themes, its mythos and its lasting popularity.
“The premise of the book is that imagination is the key ingredient in Calvin and Hobbes. It’s what powers a lot of the strips.”
The first half of the book is about the comic strip and how it came to be and how it functioned. The second half of the book is about the legacy of the strip since that fateful day more than 22 years ago. It’s about Watterson himself and his fans’ uneasy relationship with the reclusive retired cartoonist. He also examines the influence of the comic strip on other artists and their works.
True to his training as a reporter, he even attempted to make contact with Watterson who is now as famously secretive as Sasquatch.
“I did send a perfunctory email just because I’m a journalist. You miss 100 per cent of the shots you don’t take. I wrote to him and said, ‘I’m a fan of the strip and I’m writing about it. I know you don’t do this kind of thing but if you felt like talking on the record about whatever you want I’d be up for it.’”
“I wasn’t really expecting to hear from him. The chapter about Bill Watterson is called ‘Leave Bill Watterson alone.’”
He did hear back from Lee Salem who was Watterson’s editor and has long acted as the go-between for all media requests since. Salem helpfully talked Hingston through some of the finer details about the strip. There are some historical points that do come as a surprise to this reader. In an alternate universe – one without editors – Watterson-2 might never have seen the success of Watterson-1.
“It’s hard to remember this now but the strip didn’t emerge fully formed. Watterson struggled for years to sell it and tried to sell various other strips including a strip where Calvin was the younger brother of the main character. An editor rejected the strip that he submitted but said, ‘Hey, there’s this kid in the corner who has this talking imaginary tiger friend. What do you think? Maybe there’s something there.’ The strip came about slowly, gradually … and then suddenly it clicked and everything took off.”
The lasting impressions of those two fictional characters mean that Hingston likely has an already-sturdy market for his analysis. He said that if you liked the strip then you’ll like his book.
“I’m not doing some kind of counter-intuitive thesis. It’s not shocking the world or doing something totally unexpected. It’s doing a loving analysis of the strip, and an analysis that I think is overdue. One of the reasons I wanted to do this was I didn’t think that book existed yet. I thought that experience that I had with Calvin and Hobbes felt like what you had with Calvin and Hobbes and millions and millions of other people had with Calvin and Hobbes is very common but also hasn’t really been expressed on the page yet. I thought it deserved that. So far, that seems to be working.”
Apart from all that, it also proves his mettle when fledgling writers come to his office to ask for his knowledgeable assistance. They can see that he’s been published.
