OK now, here's the plan.
You know that new cartoon place down in Boca Raton, Fla., the Cartoon Museum Hall of Fame?We meet there and we picket to force Bill Watterson to get back to his drawing board.
In December Watterson gave up drawing "Calvin and Hobbes" after 10 years, and I have not been the same since. The strip featuring that little brat Calvin and his wise tiger companion Hobbes was my daily fix.
I have tried to get along without them, but life is just not the same since they've been gone.
Something vaguely discomforting sneaks up on me each day when I'm reading the newspaper.
I turn to the comics.
Oh, yes, now I remember.
Another day without my pals.
When Watterson broke the news that he had decided to put down his ink and pens, I tried to understand. He said he had simply run out of ideas, something about not wanting to compromise his artistic integrity with contrived stories.
Well, contrive all the way, I say, if that's what it takes to get them back in our lives. Go ahead and compromise. Who doesn't?
It has been far too long, more than two months - that's eight or nine weeks, people, or 70 days at last count - since Watterson stopped letting us know what was going on with Calvin and Hobbes. That's long enough as far as I'm concerned. Just because we can't see them, does it mean they are not up to their old tricks? If a tree falls but no one is around, does it make a sound?
I want to know if Hobbes has figured out who to vote for this year. I bet he has but if I know Hobbes he probably won't tell us.
I want to know if Calvin has yet to buckle down and do his homework on time. I bet he hasn't but nobody had better excuses for his teacher than he did. Many of them spoke right to a news reporter's way of life: the ever-present deadline.
In one series about collecting leaves for a class assignment, Calvin naturally put the job off until the last minute, claiming he works best under "last-minute panic" situations. That time he ended up selling planet Earth for 50 leaves to a pair of extraterrestrials.
I haven't gone that far to convince my editor I need more time on a story. But I'm not saying I'm above such tactics.