I can still remember choosing between the morning or evening paper based on which included _Calvin and Hobbes_, so it certainly worked to sell papers.

The boxed collection is wonderful, and one of my favourites.

For folks who want a bit more, there have been a couple of homages:

"Hobbes and Bacon": https://imgur.com/gallery/all-hobbes-bacon-by-pants-are-over... --- a bit too on-the-nose for my taste, which doesn't really add anything

"Calvin and Company" by DomNX, wherein Calvin and Susie have twins named after Albert Camus and Simone de Beauvoir --- art not fully realized/up to the task, and again, all a bit too obvious

There was also one simply heart-breaking one, where Calvin has cancer, gets a decrepit Hobbes out of storage, and gifts him to a troubled grandchild, but not finding it on searching....

The thing is, laughing at problems, while cathartic, isn't actually inspiring folks to actually understand/solve problems/make the world a better place.... I'm reminded of a comic from childhood where a child sees duck hunters as part of the reason why a forest is clearcut for a development, instead of the reason why such land is preserved (the Pa. State Game Commission manages over 1.5 million acres) or, maybe I'm just overly pessimistic this morning because of intractable problems where people choose wrongly, mostly through not understanding the problem/ignorance/lack of sympathy for others --- classic example, drivers in cars who get upset because following a cyclist causes them slow down on their way to a red light --- rather a shame that the strips featuring Calvin's father as a cyclist weren't didactic so as to show/discuss that sort of thing, rather than going for the laugh.

My own personal favorites: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XryL7duzj_WZEy0dtdDO48_s...

My favorite Calvin and Hobbes reference: https://xkcd.com/409/

There are even more on xkcd: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Category:Calvin_a...

IMO, Watterson stopped at just the right time to preserve his legacy and keep the strip associated with childlike wonder and innocence. In the last years of the strip, there was a certain curmudgeonliness creeping in, as Waterson started to mock modern commerce and art. I think the cartoonist was naturally growing older and more disillusioned, and his strip faintly started to sound like Calvin’s dad instead of Calvin.

I always figured that Calvin grew up to be Elon Musk.