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''Calvin and Hobbes'' is a daily comic strip by American cartoonist Bill Watterson that was syndicated from November 18, 1985 to December 31, 1995. It follows the humorous antics of Calvin, a precocious, mischievous, and adventurous six-year-old boy, and Hobbes, his sardonic stuffed tiger. The pair is named after John Calvin, a 16th-century French Reformation theologian, and Thomas Hobbes, a 17th-century English political philosopher.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 title=Calvin and Hobbes Trivia )〕 At the height of its popularity, ''Calvin and Hobbes'' was featured in over 2,400 newspapers worldwide. As of January 2015, reruns of the strip still appear in more than 50 countries. By 2010 nearly 45 million copies of the 18 ''Calvin and Hobbes'' books have been sold. ''Calvin and Hobbes'' is set in the contemporary United States in an unspecified suburban area, which is vaguely suggested to be in northeast Ohio. The strip depicts Calvin's flights of fancy and his friendship with Hobbes. It also examines Calvin's relationships with family and classmates. Hobbes' dual nature is a defining motif for the strip: to Calvin, Hobbes is a live anthropomorphic tiger; all the other characters see him as an inanimate stuffed toy. Though the series does not mention specific political figures or current events, it does explore broad issues like environmentalism, public education, philosophical quandaries, and the flaws of opinion polls. ==History== ''Calvin and Hobbes'' was conceived when Bill Watterson, working in an advertising job he detested, began devoting his spare time to cartooning, his true love. He explored various strip ideas but all were rejected by the syndicates. United Feature Syndicate finally responded positively to one strip called ''Critturs'', which featured a side character (the main character's little brother) who had a stuffed tiger. Told that these characters were the strongest, Watterson began a new strip centered on them. Though United Feature rejected the new strip, Universal Press Syndicate eventually took it. The first strip was published on November 18, 1985, 〔 and the series quickly became a hit. Within a year of syndication, the strip was published in roughly 250 newspapers. Before long the strip was in wide circulation outside the United States. By April 5, 1987, Watterson and his work were featured in an article in ''The Los Angeles Times''.〔 ''Calvin and Hobbes'' twice earned Watterson the Reuben Award from the National Cartoonists Society in the Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year category, first in 1986 and again in 1988. He was nominated again in 1992. The Society awarded him the Humor Comic Strip Award for 1988. Calvin and Hobbes has also won several more awards. Watterson took two extended breaks from writing new strips, from May 5, 1991, to February 1, 1992, and from April 3 through December 31, 1994. In 1995, Watterson sent a letter via his syndicate to all editors whose newspapers carried his strip: The final strip ran on Sunday, December 31, 1995.〔(【引用サイトリンク】accessdate = May 2, 2009 )〕 It depicted Calvin and Hobbes outside in freshly fallen snow, reveling in the wonder and excitement of the winter scene. "It's a magical world, Hobbes, ol' buddy... Let's go exploring!" Calvin exclaims as they zoom off over the snowy hills on their sled,〔Watterson (2005), vol. 3, p. 481. Comic originally published 1995-12-31.〕 leaving, according to one critic ten years later, "a hole in the comics page that no strip has been able to fill." 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Calvin and Hobbes」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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