Calvin and Hobbes and the Dead Bird Strip: An Analysis

Part 1: Calvin and Hobbes and the birds. 

There’s one Calvin and Hobbes strip that is wildly different from the rest. 

Most of Calvin and Hobbes follows the 6-year old Calvin and his (imaginary?) tiger best friend as they have various misadventures. Some strips are outrageously funny, some more grounded, and some surprisingly somber and quiet. 

The infamous bird strip is one of those last ones. Probably one of the most devastating comic strips of all time:

(Imagine flipping to the comics to find THIS- on a Sunday of all days. OUCH.)

Calvin provides an uncharacteristically depressing interpretation of life at first:

Basically, life is fragile. And like birds hitting windows, it can end suddenly.

But then Calvin says something that sounds more like what a 6 year old would normally say: That it will all make sense when they grow up. 

Obviously, Calvin is wrong. Nobody, old or young, fully understands why we die, or if  our lives have any meaning, or if death negates the point of living, or if any of it is even worth worrying about at all.

And then the birds at the end. They fly, unaware that one of their own is dead. Or maybe they do know. And choose to fly anyway.  

Growing older is a privilege. It may sound depressing, but really it’s not. And it’s far better than dying early, like a bird flying into a window. 

Calvin and the rest of the birds are lucky. They, unlike the dead, have the ability to live.

Part 2: World of Tomorrow

“Now is the envy of all of the dead.”

World of Tomorrow is an animated short by Don Hertzfeldt about a young girl named Emily who is visited by a clone of herself from the future.

In World of Tomorrow, cloning is used as a means of achieving eternal life. This clone visitor is the third in a line of Emilys, who has come back to the original Emily (“Emily Prime”) to retrieve a comforting memory as the world in her future faces imminent extinction. 

It's worth noting that Emily 3's goal is to retrieve a memory. She might not be able to change her future, but she gets comfort out of reliving the past. 

The film explores a lot of scenarios and themes, but the central core message comes at the end, with Emily 3’s final speech to Emily Prime. She says to her: 

“Do not lose time on daily trivialities. Do not dwell on petty detail. For all of these things melt away, and drift apart within the obscure traffic of time. Live well, and live broadly. You are alive and living now. Now is the envy of all of the dead.”

Like Calvin, Emily 3 provides a perspective on life that involves ignoring the parts that would weigh us down. 

If we combine Calvin and Emily 3’s perspectives, we end up with a sort of hierarchy: death is at the bottom, what you should be least concerned about, then the day to day aspects of life are in the middle, and then your life as a whole is at the top, right?

Well, it's actually little more tricky than that. It goes back around. This isn't a hierarchy, it’s a loop. 

 

Part 3: Our Town 

Our Town is a 1938 play written by Thornton Wilder that is structured around the character of “the stage manager” narrating the events to the audience. It is unique in that it has a barebones set, and that actions are pantomimed by the actors instead of having them interact with any objects. 

There are a lot of characters and events in Our Town, but it focuses mainly on the lives of married couple George and Emily. (Fun coincidence).

The play progresses from their childhood, to their marriage, and then to Emily’s sudden death.

She, in her death, is able to communicate with the stage manager. She asks the stage manager if she can relive one memory before she moves on. The memory of her twelfth birthday. 

She relives the memory, but it doesn't go as she wants. Her mother cannot see the deceased Emily, and doesn’t know she is there. The deceased Emily is able to watch, but can’t do anything. She attempts to talk to her mother, but she doesn’t get any response. She laments how time moves so fast. She takes one more look at the world before she leaves the memory, bidding farewell to all the small beauties of the world.

“Oh Earth,” She says, “you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you.” 

She is only beginning to see the full beauty of the world in death. Only after dying does she realize all of it.

Maybe that’s what happened to the bird. Maybe he relived memories, or took a final look at all the small wonders. 

Maybe Emily 3 took the memory of her twelfth birthday from her predecessor, appreciated all the small parts, appreciated life before hers was taken.

It is a loop. Small things are what make up life, and death is what finally gives us clarity on the life we’ve lead. 

The birds were still flying at the end. Why were they still flying?

The dead cannot speak to the living. Cannot tell them what to do. Cannot warn them to stop

There’s nothing else to do, besides keep flying. Keep flying, and look behind you.

Van Gogh, Rothko, and What Makes Art Good.

What makes a piece of art bad?

You might be thinking something like: "when it looks wrong," "when it doesn't look real," "when I don't get what I'm supposed to be looking at," "when it doesn't look like anything," etc. 

Well, the truth is, none of these things necessarily make an artwork bad. The truth is actually a lot more complicated.

To get to the bottom of what makes a piece of art "bad," I actually want to look at what makes a piece of art good:

     

In this twitter post, the user makes the claim that the piece on the left is painted "more skillfully" than the piece on the right, and thus because the piece on the left is painted "more skillfully," that makes it superior in quality to the one on the right.

This user is clearly defining "skill" in this case as how realistic the painting looks. And in this instance, they are right. The painting on the left is indeed more realistic than Van Gogh's painting. 

And let's be clear. If this user enjoys this realistic style more than the expressionism of Van Gogh, than that is perfectly valid. 

It's perfectly fine to have your own taste. 

But I believe that this person, and many people like them, actually have a fundamental misunderstanding of not only expressionism and Van Gogh, but what makes some art art better or worse than other art. 

Let's look at the two paintings, starting with the one on the left by Haixia Liu.

It's not a bad painting per se. It is indeed drawn well and accurately, for the most part. It has a nice, comforting yellow lighting. 

It would make for a good postcard or fridge magnet. 

But what emotional response do you get from this painting? Look at it deeply. Do you really feel something? 

It looks nice and warm, sure, but it doesn't have any power in it. It's a pretty facade, nothing more, nothing less. 

If you are content with that, than fine. 

But I think that most people will agree with me when I say that I wish there was more, something you would only find in a better painting. Such as...

..."Cafe Terrace at Night" by Van Gogh. 

Now, if we're going by the presumption that realism=quality, this would be an objectively worse painting. 

But we're not. It may be less realistic, but lets look at the art and not at the image. Let's be less shallow, and look deeper. 

Look at that warm, yellow, inviting light from the cafe. It sucks you in. It makes you want to go inside that cafe. 

Do you feel that soft disturbance, that if only you were there? 

Look at it, but don't look. Think deeper. Feel deeper. 

Look at the people, the waiter taking orders. The little brushstrokes that give the impression of vibrant cafe patrons, look at those on the street walking by. 

My favorite part is the environment. The night sky is blue and cold, the buildings in the background dark and tall, standing vigilant. 

Can't you almost hear the crickets chirping, feel the cold breeze on your skin, hear the chatter of conversation? 

It's beautiful. It's a little captured moment of another world, another moment in time. 

If you prefer the realism of works like the ones made by Haixia Liu, than fine. Be my guest. 

But doesn't it get stale? Look at Van Gogh's use of color. None of the Haixia Liu's in the world will ever have that for you. 

Haixia Liu's paintings would be comparable to one of those "ultra-realistic drawings" that you see on Instagram if they weren't as good. Those are detailed and impressive and demand a heap of technical skill, but don't give you anything. 

They don't leave any kind of impression, and there's no emotional punch in it at all. You scroll to the next thing.

I have a pet peeve against those who dismiss abstract art. 

Not dismissive towards Van Gogh because most people love Van Gogh, (for good reason), but against people like Mark Rothko. 

This isn't anything new. 

People have been dismissive or even hateful towards abstract art for who knows how long 

Just look at Who's Afraid of Red Yellow and Blue III. 

A painting of only red, yellow, and blue, that got vandalized with a knife. 

Dismissing a work of art before even trying to understand it is the worst crime you can do to art, in my opinion. At least make an attempt to understand it first. 

There is some art worth dismissing, worth putting down, and there always will be, but put some thought into it.

Let's go back for a second. Let's look at Rothko. 

Now, there's nothing wrong with disliking Rothko, but most pieces of "criticism" I see are claims that Rothko's works have no value, that they're just squares of color. 

They are right. They are squares of color. But why is this a criticism? 

Lets say there's a hypothetical viewer looking at this Rothko.

Joe Schmoe is thinking: 

"I could have painted that"

Well, for one thing, you couldn't have unless you were as technically skilled as Rothko, and Rothko's paintings actually required extreme technical skill. 

But even if you were able to, why didn't you? 

Why would someone complain that their art would be in a museum, if only they had painted it? 

Why turn this into dissatisfaction, and not motivation? 

"It's only a few color blobs. It's nothing special." 

This opinion makes me want to tear my hair out.

Look, I get that it might be hard to appreciate Rothko, especially when you're looking at it as a tiny reproduction on your phone or computer or something, but these paintings are actually pretty massive in person

Think about that. 

Stare at this digital reproduction right here of No. 61 Rust and Blue for a bit and then close your eyes. 

Think about it in front of you, and imagine it as tall and as wide as infinity. 

That's as close as you can get to seeing it in person, anyway. 

And I've seen Rothko's in person. 

It's just color, until it isn't 

When you have the opportunity, like I have had, to move up close, and just stare, see the brushstrokes, see the color, and take it all in, it becomes more than just a picture

It's color. And doesn't it make you feel something? 

Doesn't Rust and Blue give you something? 

It gives you an emotional punch. It's not a picture, it's not a depiction of anything, not of a cafe, or a city, or a sky, or a town, or anything in our world, but it has and contains soul. 

It has feeling, a beating heart of feeling, and by looking at it, by taking it in, by reaching out and diving deeper into its wellspring, you are given something and you take something. 

It's fine, perfectly fine, to not like Rothko. But none of the Haixia Liu's in the world will give you anything. 

I have tons more thoughts on the matter and similar subjects, such as on AI "art" (bad) and Lynda Barry (good). I'll be sure to write them down soon. I had to stop somewhere!