Calvin and Hobbes/Tear Jerker

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • A storyline has Calvin finding an injured baby raccoon and trying to save its life. He doesn't succeed.
  • The Christmas strip where Calvin confesses to Hobbes that he didn't get him a Christmas present or a card. Hobbes wishes him a merry Christmas anyway, and they hug each other.
  • "I suppose it will all make sense when we grow up."
  • The one where Calvin and Hobbes figure out that they can play together all night by dreaming about each other, then go to bed saying they'll see each other soon. Seems more like a Heartwarming Moments, until the 10th Anniversary compilation where Bill Watterson revealed that he wrote that strip after the death of his cat Sprite, who was the major inspiration for Hobbes' look and personality. "We can always meet again in dreams."
  • The last strip (and the name of the last book) of the comic's run is definitely tragic on a meta level. "It's a magical world, Hobbes ol' buddy. Let's go exploring!!"
  • The unofficial theme song, "My tiger, my heart":

As sweet as a plum, ad lovely as dawn, rolling its tongue over its gums:
My tiger and me, as happy as could be, sat out on the porch as the whole of the sky clouds quietly over.
And it starts to cry, softly, on my shoulder.
We don't want to grow up, but we have to grow up. As sad as I am, I do understand. I do understand, it just makes me sad.
My tiger, my heart - We're growing apart. We're trying to be friends, but it's hard sometimes to be friends with something that eats butterflies and pencil sharpeners, and I think it would be happier being free...
My tiger, my friend, my little godsend. I know someday we'll be happy again.

  • After the house is broken into (while the family was on vacation), Dad muses how he doesn't feel safe in his own home anymore.

"A man's home is his castle, but it shouldn't have to be his fortress."

  • The baseball story arc. Calvin signs up for a baseball team, but close to the end, Calvin messes up by accident and makes his team lose. All of the other players cruelly insult Calvin, for something that wasn't even his fault! (One of them even asks if he can hit Calvin with the bat.) The kicker? At the end, Calvin asks the coach if he can sign off and the coach says, "Ok, quitter! Goodbye."