My favorite Cartoon is stil...hands down, "The Far Side".
But my favorite Cartoonist is Bill Watterson.
This may seem like splitting hairs, but I did reach that conclusion for reasons that make sense to me.
The Far Side appeals to the fundamental, ingrained sense of humor that has formed in me throughout the course of my life. There are elements to my sense of humor that are dark, twisted, bizarre, and whimsical.
For example, there is my favorite Far Side Cartoon below:
I suppose there are some who would look at it and not get the point. Others might get the point and think "What is so funny about a plane full of people having their remains scattered across a mountaintop when they hit it at 500 mph?"
I look at that, and it hits me squarely in the funny bone: In life, my experiences are full of things where I simply did not get it. Whatever it was, the indications were staring me in the face, literally shouting at me and hitting me over the head with a 2x4 yelling "HEY! DUMMY! THIS IS A CLUE! DON'T YOU SEE WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN?"
It is like the first time you are fiddling around with a jackknife trying to push on something, and the blade folds up on you, severely cutting your finger. I knew the blade did not lock, I had several cases where the blade had folded in a premonitory fashion that should have warned me, but...being the dimwit I was, or simply caught up in the stream of doing things, I didn't get it. And when it folded and cut my finger badly, I am sure I had a look of utter surprise on my face!
And that is what tickled me about that specific cartoon. Those two guys, seeing the mountain goat in a hole in a cloud, instead of thinking they were going to crash, wondered how on Earth a mountain goat could get up into a cloud! It is so ludicrously human that it is hilarious to me! And the Far Side is chock-full of those types of things.
When I read Calvin and Hobbes in depth, I was blown away by the intimate human expression of what it was like to be Calvin, or to be around Calvin, like his parents, teachers, neighbors, etc.
And I have never had children. But I was one. And I see every bit of my childhood as a little boy in Calvin. And I imagine every parent of a child like Calvin understands completely, as do ostensible friends, teachers, etc.
I remember all too well being six years old. I remember being stuck in class. Daydreaming. Drawing pictures of airplanes. Hating girls. Being called on by the teacher for an answer to something, while I was in the middle of a heated battle with the representation of her on the planet Zorg.
Homework. Having to go to bed when I didn't want to. The willingness of me to sacrifice my entire future life for one single snow day today. Sledding down hills. Christmas. That awareness that there were times my parents had no idea what to do with me, or how to treat me (this, in a family of six kids) I completely felt like, and identified with Calvin.
I remember that so well, I feel it in my bones rather than remember it.
And I realized just how well and talented Bill Watterson portrayed all of those things in heartwarming fashion. It is a talent like I have rarely seen, perhaps closest in Charles Schultz of Peanuts fame. (His characters in Peanuts, though, were all adults portrayed as children, IMO)
Interestingly, I rarely, if ever, recall Ted Larsen making political statements in his comics. But Bill Watterson certainly, and sometimes very pointedly did.
I read up on Watterson, and he comes across to me as a Lefty. But I forgive him this in his cartoons...he is generally pretty gentle in making his point, so...I don't hold it against him.
I loved that you asked me that question, because I thought deeply about it after I was done reading his works and had spoken only tangentially about it to my brother.
