Nostalgia for Calvin and Hobbes

Calvin and Hobbes likely doesn’t need any more praise for being the unique cultural achievement it is as one of the most acclaimed comic strips of all time. Everyone agrees on that already. So this post is mostly about my own personal journey with the strip and why I can’t help but feel nostalgic about it. I know almost down to the date when I first discovered Calvin and Hobbes. It was in the spring of 1995 while I was in my parents’ summer house where I bought this magazine called Serieparaden at the local small supermarket. What’s interesting about this magazine is that, unlike the superhero magazines or the ones focused on the likes of Garfield or Donald Duck, it wasn’t tied to a specific universe. As the title suggests, it was a parade of series, just a collection of different comic strips. Of course, Calvin and Hobbes was the main event throughout the lifetime of the magazine, but they also had stuff like Swamp, Hagar the Horrible, Zits and Gary Larson’ The Far Side. The lineup…