One last "Calvin and Hobbes"-related memory:

In 2014, Bill Watterson emerged from hibernation to ghost-draw one week of "Pearls Before Swine" strips.

I was pretty certain I had figured out the gimmick on the first day … but I couldn’t convince the St. Louis Post-Dispatch features department to report on it.

So I did it myself:
https://www.joshrenaud.com/family/archives/2014/06/the-cartooning-beat.html

#calvinandhobbes #comics #webcomics #1990s #history #comichistory #newspapers #localnews #news #stlouispostdispatch #pearlsbeforeswine

I wasn't an ANSI artist in the 1990s, but more recently I've been creating animations in the Atari ST's obscure "IGS" format.

I'm most proud of an original "Calvin and Hobbes" animation I released last year that shows what might have happened if Calvin had owned _two_ cardboard boxes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS_riObN32o&t=347s

(4/5)

#calvinandhobbes #comics #webcomics #1990s #history #comichistory #igs #instantgraphicsandsound #atarist #atari #textmode

ANSI artist Eerie is the subject of my latest in-depth #retrocomputing profile:
https://breakintochat.com/blog/2025/12/31/ansi-art-and-webcomics-part-3-eerie-and-inspector-dangerfuck/

Eerie drew some amazing Calvin portraits at the end of 1994 — even though he had grown up influenced more by the tradition of French and Belgian bandes dessinées.

(3/5)

#calvinandhobbes #comics #webcomics #1990s #history #comichistory #ansiart #ansi #bbs #textmode

"Calvin and Hobbes" was a major influence and subject for ANSI artists of the 1990s.

https://16colo.rs/tags/content/calvin

The characters were so funny, so well-drawn, so iconic. And the timing: the strip's 1985-95 run coincided almost exactly with the rise and fall of BBSing.

Calvin's irreverence was just icing for us teens.

(2/5)

#calvinandhobbes #comics #webcomics #1990s #history #comichistory #ansiart #ansi #bbs #textmode