Mime-Version: 1.0
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1997 09:05:45 -0800
To: "Lloyd R. Nebres" (lloyd@uclink.berkeley.edu)
From: magidson@garnet.berkeley.edu (Sue Magidson)
Subject: Re: Your Herb Caen item...

Hi Lloyd,

Thanks for the email.  I'm glad to provide an excuse for yet another
tribute to Herb.  I've been devouring every letter, column, retrospective,
and tribute that have appeared in the Chron in the past week and a half.
Here are the items in question:

from 12/6/95:

THE COUNTDOWN continues: Only 25 days till the last-ever ``Calvin and
Hobbes'' cartoon, one of the lights of our matutinal half-lives. Bill
Watterson is retiring, young and rich, and if he's stuck for a Dec. 31
closer, George Raymond has a scenario: ``First panel: Calvin is sitting up
in bed, arms outstretched and declaring `It's Saturday! The grandest day of
the week.' Second panel: Calvin rustling Hobbes, who is still under the
covers. `Come on, lazy bones. Wake up! The day is rapidly escaping us.'
Third panel: Calvin pulls the covers back and sees for the first time the
still figure of a stuffed tiger. The look on his face is a mixture of
shock, dismay and sadness. Fourth panel: With one hand resting on Hobbes'
still breast, he bows his little head and a tear appears on his cheek. A
victim of something nobody can stop -- growing up.''

from 12/7/95:

YESTERDAY'S scenario, by George Raymond, of the final ``Calvin and Hobbes''
strip (the cartoon dies Dec. 31) seemed a bit harsh to Sue Magidson: Calvin
discovers Hobbes is just a stuffed tiger after all. She recommends a
gentler finish, based on A.A. Milne's immortal Winnie-the-Pooh stories,
which end with Christopher Robin going off to school, leaving Pooh Bear
behind. A real tear-jerker, especially the last line: ``But wherever they
go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the
top of the Forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.'' The
same, one hopes, for the little boy and his tiger.


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