The Death of Calvin and Hobbes

The art is the experience. With the Star Wars cruise, tourists are seeking to see the familiar from a new perspective, agreeing to suspend disbelief and, better yet, agree that this moment of life is all taking place in the same universe

LARP world has limits and rules, as opposed to the relentless and grinding unknowable logic of our own world. Fantasy, in a sense, has become more stable than our reality.

Selling out is usually more a matter of buying in. Sell out, and you're really buying into someone else's system of values, rules and rewards.

“The world is so huge now, it feels endless… When you go into a fantasy universe, it’s smaller, you can focus.”

Watterson wanted to control the world he created. That approach worked with gatekeepers. Now, it limits longevity and makes the wisdom of Calvin and Hobbes inaccessible at a time when there are so many people out there searching for other worlds where they can, at least for just a moment, take a breath.

LARPing has become an elevated form of world-building. Disney agrees. That’s why the company made a big bet on the Disney Star Wars cruise where everyone is expected to stay in character all the time. Remember, this is from the company that calls employees “Imagineers.”

what does art become when the form goes extinct?

maybe in a society that only promises the limitless, the things we treasure most are, no matter how much we deny them, always limited. Watterson’s is a small, beautiful, contained world with a definite end, not a sprawling and infinite universe. Calvin and Hobbes isn’t omnipresent. It’s an object to seek.

living in an era where art is commerce because scale of distribution is influence is success, I’ve begun to believe it’s short-sighted and almost selfish.