akrish

So I just wrote this really long, hopefully thoughtful post, but it didn’t turn out as I wanted so this is much lighter. This article wound up in my RSS reader and it got me thinking about comics. I used to read tons of comics when I was a kid and nowadays when I look at the newspaper, most of the comics pretty much suck. Here are some of my favorites (in some loose ordering):

1. First of all, Calvin and Hobbes is one of the greatest comics of all time, and that article attests to that. If you can get your hands on Calvin and Hobbes books, I highly recommend them. Bill Watterson treated his comics as artwork and he really does so much more with the inches of space than many other cartoonists. Also, his material is often deep and philosophical, and I think a lot of kids can relate to Calvin in more profound ways that other cartoons. Calvin is one of my favorite childhood characters because of his imagination and his cynicism.
2. Tintin isn’t a newspaper comic, but more of a comic book. It’s originally a French comic book but it should not be hard to find English translations. The comic is quite popular and when I last went to Europe (years ago), I saw the comic book everywhere. Anyway, it’s a very good comic. It’s not like other comics in that it’s purpose is not comedy. They are about the adventures of this journalist (Tintin), who ends up travelling all over the place. And of course there is subtle humor scattered throughout, making these comics quite entertaining.
3. Asterix again is like Tintin in that it is a French comic book. However, this one is more explicitly humorous. The humor is very unlike American humor, differentiating this comic from other popular ones. For one, the names of all the characters are puns, like “Asterix”, “Obelix”, and “Chief Vitalstatistics”. Read the comics for more of these puns, unfortunately I’m not if you’re still able to get them or where you can do so. There are tons of other humorous elements, in fact, there’s a wikipedia article about them.
4. Foxtrot is another really funny comic that was in syndication until pretty recently. If you haven’t read it, you should read some on the website. It’s about your average American Family, and mostly about the three kids, a high school jock, a stereotypical freshman girl, and a super-nerdy fifth grader. I guess, the humor is pretty standard for American cartoons, but I related to a lot of the subject matter, more so than many other comics.
5. Beetle Bailey. For some good old-fashioned laughs, check out this comic. My dad had a bunch of the comic books so I ended up reading them as a kid. Beetle Bailey is a lazy soldier and it’s about his the escapades of him and his camp.
6. Dilbert. I started reading Dilbert as a teenager (much later than the rest), but I guess as a programmer, I can kind of relate to Dilbert’s life (though fortunately I’m stuck in a corporate hell-of-a-job). I didn’t enjoy this one as much as the others, but Scott Adams is still a really funny writer. I recently came across this, which definitely made me laugh.

And of course now there are web comics. I periodically read xkcd and phdcomics. So yeah, enjoy!

Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson (courtesy of CalvinandHobbes.com)

I stumbled on this comic just now looking for a different Calvin and Hobbes strip that unfortunately I wasn’t able to find. But this comic reminded me of the good ol’ summers that I used to have when I was a kid when I would by dying of boredom and excited to go back to school (yes I was a nerd even then). The summers where I would sit around in the heat all day reading, watching tv, sweating. Where my friends and I would have water fights, go swimming, play sports and on the whole be spontaneous.

We used to have this tradition in elementary and middle school where after the last day of school my friends, my brother’s friends, my brother and I would all come to our house and have an intense water fight. We’d just run around my house with super soakers (which by the way seem to have changed a lot since I last had one), hoses and water balloons and we’d all be dripping and shivering after a couple of hours.

Since none of us could drive, during the days when our parents worked we weren’t able to hang out with each other so everyone got bored, but it was the best boredom one could imagine. There were no cares, no deadlines, no internships, no summer school, no applications and it was truly amazing.

I already wrote about what I’m doing this summer so I won’t really talk about here (you can read about it here though). But since high school, summer was about getting ahead in school, getting into college, and learning how to be an adult (i.e. working). In high school, I took classes, tutored, taught clarinet, tried to get a job, studied for SATs, worked on college applications and even though there was a lot more free time than during the school year, it wasn’t the same as the summers of elementary and middle school. And now in college, I’ve spent both my summers working full time for pretty much the entire summer because I’m supposed to get ready for adult life.

It’s not like I don’t enjoy these summers where I am doing things. In fact I think if I were given a couple of weeks with nothing to do, I’d probably spend most of it programming anyway. It’s just that I think I would like a couple of weeks with nothing to do, and then I’d have the ability to spend that time however I want (programming…) and it would be really relaxing. I also think the not being able to drive around would be interesting, because I’d get a lot more time to myself which I need every now and then (especially when I’m trying to relax).

So things have certainly changed, but I wouldn’t say for the worse. Now I’m able to take care of myself, I’m rarely ever bored during these summers, and I still have some time to play sports and hang out with my friends. It also really makes me enjoy the weekends.

On a random note. I used to read Calvin and Hobbes pretty religiously. I have a lot of the comic books at home and really like Watterson’s creativity. Calvin’s imagination is amazing and I really enjoy a lot of the adventures that he has. Also I find his philosophies and social commentaries pretty interesting. If you haven’t read much of this comic I highly recommend it.