TRACER BULLET
The detective, of when clues should be resulted, like when the flower pot breaks, or if Calvin goes bald. Even though Bill didn't know much about film noir, I must say he did a very good job with Tracer Bullet, then again I don't know much of the matter, so.....
However, I like them, Bill did them in a way that suggests he is a bit of a perfectionist who'd hate to have something look like a amateur with no respect to that art or whatever is doing or even bothered to investigate, so... I forgot my point. Tracer Bullet stories are interesting, they usually revolve around something Calvin did; though not always, like that math test one, but I enjoy the way what is happening around Calvin and the people are described.

In the Tenth Anniversary Book, Bill say about writing Tracer Bullet: "Tracer Bullet stories are extremely time-consuming to write, so I don't attempt them often. I'm not at all familiar with film noir or detective novels, so these are just spoofs on the clichés of the genre. Cartoonists don't use black much anymore (the eye, being lazy, is attracted to empty white space, especially when the panels are so small), and we miss some dramatic possibilities that way."


SPACEMAN SPIFF
The most popular of Calvin's alter egos, Spaceman Spiff is the one who zaps evil aliens or is captured by them. I personally didn't enjoy the Spaceman Spiff strips, however, I have grown to like them, more for their scenery and aliens, than for the actual Spiff (I'm glad Bill didn't make a comic out of Spiff) Spaceman Spiff in my opinion, is the character which takes Calvin's imagination farthest. I enjoy the aliens most, because personally, I doubt I'd ever be able to make up such odd looking aliens, like the many ones Bill made and Spiff gets to meet. Spaceman Spiff predates Calvin and Hobbes by over a decade. I trace Spiff back to a comic strip I drew for high school German class, called Raumfahrer Rolf. It was a pretty silly two-page comic in which the protagonist got eaten by a monster at the end, but it was written in some sort of German, and that was what counted. I reworked the character in college, calling him "Spaceman Mort," but the strip was conceived as a fairly elaborate, continuing project and that didn't seem like the best use of my academic time, so I never published it.

A year or so after college, the newly christened Spaceman Spiff was my first strip submission to newspaper syndicates. Spiff was a diminutive loudmouth, not like Calvin, albeit with a Chaplin mustache, flying goggles, and a cigar. He had a dimwitted assistant named Fragile, and they roamed through space in a dirigible. For obvious reasons, the syndicates rejected it. Years later, when I came up with Calvin, I finally had the opportunity to bring Spiff back.

When I was a kid, I followed the Apollo moon program with great interest, so Calvin shares that fascination with space travel. Spaceman Spiff is also a bit of a spoof on Flash Gordon. The narration in Flash Gordon is fairly overwrought, so I have Spiff describe his own exploits with the similar search for breathless superlatives.
The Spiff strips are limited in narrative potential, but I keep doing them because they're so much fun to draw. The planets and monsters offer great visual possibilities, especially in the Sunday strips. Most of the alien landscapes come from the canyons and deserts of southern Utah, a place more weird and spectacular than anything I'd previously been able to make up. The landscapes have become a significant part of the Spaceman Spiff sequences, and I often write the strip around the topography I feel like drawing.
Like all of Calvin's fantasies, Spaceman Spiff provides a way for me to draw some other comic strip when I want a break from Calvin and Hobbes. I can draw and write things that wouldn't fit in the strip otherwise, and this opens up opportunities to experiment with new interests.


STUPENDOUS MAN
STUPENDOUS MAN!! One of my favorite alter egos. He usually dons the red cape, Calvin's mom made him and always appears when Calvin most seems to need him, for something mild mannered Calvin finds impossible.

IMPOSSIBLE? Why nothing is impossible for Stupendous Man!... except probably not getting into trouble. Whenever Calvin has to deal with problems or situations of which he thinks he can't handle it, he calls the help from Stupendous Man. Stupendous Man is capable of solving the problems Calvin can't. Calvin denies the fact that he is actually Stupendous Man himself. If somebody wants to hold Calvin responsible for the things that Stupendous man did, Calvin always claims that he didn't do anything wrong.
In this way, I guess, Calvin thinks he can solve certain problems without dealing with the troubles it may cause (and it certainly will)


Other not so Alter Egos
The following is a list of other characters Calvin turns into also, but not really alter egos, yet, worth mentioning still.

SAFARI AL
The most forgotten of Calvin's alter egos, probably the name (Al seems like an easily forgotten name), who appeared only once in the strip and little else is known, except his name was Al and I guess he really enjoyed going on Safaris, otherwise he shouldn't be calling himself "SafariAl". Either way, he a not so alter ego since he appeared only once. :p


DINOSAURS
The dinosaurs! Though not really an alter ego of Calvin, he would occasionally turn into one. I enjoyed the dinosaur strips more, after Bill learned to draw them realistically. They also show, if you've seen them all, how much the strip grew in it's ten years. Probably the only subject Calvin shows real passion about, they come to life every few Sundays (they wouldn't be as great in small black and white panels), and make for really funny situations (I'm mostly referring to the ones that show a Tyrannosaurus sharing, or eating using proper utensils). The first dinosaur strip however, lacked many things. I am not going to go on about it, because if you've read and seen it, you can immediately see what's wrong. Anyway, the later strips make for some hysterical situations, I'd never imagine a real dinosaur would be found in.


CAPTAIN NAPALM
He only appeared twice in the whole ten years Calvin and Hobbes ran.
Who is Captain Napalm? I think he was an earlier Stupendous Man, but without the name. Figuring Napalm is a pretty lame name for a kid like Calvin to think up, Bill wisely got him locked in the closet, where I believe the alter ego remains, and shall never return.
He appeared again as a comic book superhero.


ANIMALS
Every once and a while, Calvin will occasionally turn into an animal.
Mostly to annoy his parents, I enjoy them not as much as the dinosaur ones.However, I enjoy them for how they can be connected to whatever Calvin's doing at the moment (ex. Calvin is pretending to float, and imagines himself an alligator). BACK TO TOP

[ also ]

other regulars
alter egos