But this is no mere suggestion or idle speculation on my part. At least this
once, I know whereof I write. From
<http://www.ucomics.com/calvinandhobbes/characters.htm>:
- Calvin is named for a sixteenth-century theologian who believed in
predestination.
- Named after a seventeenth-century philosopher with a dim view of human
nature, Hobbes has the patient dignity and common sense of most animals I've
met.
- As a few readers guessed, Miss Wormwood is named after the apprentice
devil in C.S. Lewis' "The Screwtape Letters."
I'm not sure which of the Huxleys Wirt means, although my first guess would
be Thomas Henry, Darwin's bulldog, and coiner of the term "agnostic". Calvin
and Hobbes seems to come from a perspective shaped by ideas which are
ultimately religious. Somehow, I don't see Darwin filling those sneakers, or
adolescent Darwin and Huxley playing out the issues of character or
imagination which were at the heart of the strip. Although I can imagine a
disheveled, brown-haired and round-faced little boy playing by the creek
with his bulldog, and doing somewhat more limited things with the
Transmogrifier.
BTW, www.calvinandhobbes.com, which redirects to
<www.ucomics.com/calvinandhobbes>, reruns the daily strips from exactly
eleven years ago. I wonder what they will do for February 29th, 1992.
Greg Stigers
http://www.cgiusa.com
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Wirt Atmar [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Thursday, June 06, 2002 3:31 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: OT: Interesting item of the day :)
>
>
> Don asks:
>
> > Please enlighten those of us uninformed as to the reason
> for Calvin and
> > Hobbes.
>
> I can only presume that Greg is suggesting that John Calvin
> and Thomas Hobbes
> are the precedents for the names. That may be, but Watterson
> could have
> easily have picked Darwin and Huxley and been more accurate.
>
> Calvin and Hobbes was by far and away my favorite comic
> strip. When he quit,
> I gave up reading the newspaper.
>
> Wirt Atmar
>
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