10 Great Comics You Didn't Understand The First Time

Often refered to as one of the greatest comic strips of all time, Bill Watterson's seminal Calvin and Hobbes is usually grouped together with the Peanuts and Dennis the Menace as one of the first comics young readers get started with. For them, the funny and fantastic adventures of the imaginative troublemaker Calvin and his best friend and stuffed tiger Hobbes are enjoyable but never feel pandering or simplified for them.

Revisiting them later in life, however, many readers are surprised to find that the comic strip was actually riddled with what amounts to a crash course in philosophy. The deep conversations between the title characters as they race downhill in a wagon or wander through the woods may end in punchlines, but nevertheless bring up valid philosophical arguments in a manner that young children can digest.

In what Watterson later described as an inside joke for political science majors, their names are taken from noted thinkers John Calvin and Thomas Hobbes. Even when their adventures were purely comical and superficial, they were still espousing Watterson's personal philosophy of putting personal fulfilment before all other needs. This is especially palatable to younger readers and having it come through the mouth of a child is emblematic of how some of the best thinkers are those unencumbered with age.