Ran across this tonight and thought the Calvin and Hobbes fans here might want to read it

[highplainsdem]

https://therepublicofletters.substack.com/p/calvin-and-hobbes-and-the-price-of

Calvin and Hobbes and the Price of Integrity
How Bill Watterson Stuck to His Guns — and Vanished

The Republic of Letters and Matthew Morgan
Jun 11, 2026


Dear Republic,

Maybe you liked Calvin and Hobbes as a kid but you probably have no idea of the scrupulous moral integrity that went into it, as Matthew Morgan demonstrates in this deeply-researched piece.

-ROL

CALVIN AND HOBBES AND THE PRICE OF INTEGRITY

I.

1978, Kenyon College, sophomore year. Bill Watterson is lying on his dorm room bed, staring up at the ceiling. He hasn’t yet invented six-year-old Calvin and his tiger, Hobbes — though his studies have made him familiar with their philosophical namesakes — because the strip that will make Watterson’s name is almost a decade away. Right now, he’s thinking that his dorm room needs an amateur rendition of Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam”.

There’s a number of problems up front. The first is that (as Watterson will tell you himself) he’s not a talented painter. Still, what the work will lack in “colour sense and technical flourish” it’ll make up for with comedy — specifically “the incongruity of having a High Renaissance masterpiece in a college dorm that had the unmistakeable odour of old beer cans and older laundry”. Besides, Michelangelo wasn’t Michelangelo until he’d painted and kept painting and became Michelangelo the painter. Watterson decides to go ahead and start painting.

-snip-

Much, much more at the link.

[Enter stage left]

1. We read it every day on "gocomics.com".

Watterson was a literary genius, and the very antithesis of what the republican party is!

[highplainsdem]

4. Completely agree!

[nuxvomica]

2. What's really interesting about the article

Is its depiction of someone so committed to the pure joy of creativity. Its a thoughtful reminder of what we lose when we allow AI to create things for us. In the series Hacks, comedy legend Deborah Vance rebuffs the attempt by a Silicon-Valley oligarch to have AI digest all her performances and create new jokes for her. Her reason is simple: she wants to write the jokes herself, to go through that struggle. It's the irreducible need to create. And typing words into an AI prompt is not enough. In Watterson's thinking, the artist should have as much control over the work as possible, so he used simple art tools and a limited palette, and did all the painting and inking himself, just as Michelangelo quarried the marble he used in his sculptures. AI allows us to avoid a lot of work but maybe we need reminding that the hard work may be something we want to do.

[highplainsdem]

6. "It's the irreducible need to create. And typing words into an AI prompt is not enough... AI allows us to avoid a lot of

work but maybe we need reminding that the hard work may be something we want to do."

Exactly. Watterson understood both creativity and ethics.

Both are worth fighting for. Both are matters of integrity.

It's something we're reminded of every day as we see news stories about individuals, businesses, schools and organizations capitulating to Trump. Selling out. Selling their souls.

The capitulation to AI is sometimes harder to detect because, even with all the pathetic "Resistance is futile!" nonsense from AI shills and advocates - https://www.democraticunderground.com/100221279347 - using AI is still also pitched as somehow empowering and liberating. I hate to think how many aspiring artists who could have been successful are being discouraged from even trying, because of AI. How much our society is being cheated of real artistic contributions. How much those people are being cheated of knowing what real creativity and accomplishment feel like.

[calimary]

3. Like this A LOT!!!

[highplainsdem]

8. I was really happy to read it and guessed others would like it, too.

[fujiyamasan]

5. Thanks for sharing

Big fan of C&H growing up.

[highplainsdem]

9. You're welcome!

[purr-rat beauty]

7. The only strip...

...I collect(ed) wirh reverence

Awesome stories, art, and lessons