5 Best Calvin And Hobbes Strips That Don't Star Calvin

Published Aug 21, 2026, 9:00 AM EDT

Nicolas Ayala is a Senior Writer for the Comics team at ScreenRant, with over five years of experience writing about Superhero media, action movies, and TV shows. 

Even though Calvin and Hobbes' titular characters are the main stars of almost every gag in Bill Watterson's world-famous comic strip, their supporting cast can be just as funny and relatable. Calvin and Hobbes' friendship is an inadvertent wall that isolates Calvin from the reality around him. Within his own mind, Calvin is deeply immersed in his adventures alongside Hobbes, while the outside world remains unaware of his vibrant imaginary universe, watching only an eccentric child talking to an inanimate stuffed tiger.

Yet, Bill Watterson surrounds Calvin and Hobbes with a memorable cast of supporting characters who ground Calvin's wild antics in everyday reality. Calvin's long-suffering parents bear the brunt of his chaos, constantly exhausted by his demands. Uncle Max, his father's brother, makes a brief appearance to provide an external family perspective, though he remains oblivious to Hobbes's true nature. In the neighborhood, Susie Derkins serves as Calvin's perfect foil: smart, polite, and organized, which leads to a friendly rivalry that masks a hidden mutual fascination. At school, Calvin needs to withstand his cruel bully Moe, as well as his weary teacher, Miss Wormwood.

Across more than four decades of comic strip history, Calvin and Hobbes have gone on so many adventures and gotten into so much trouble than the people around them are bound to share the spotlight at some point. While rare, strips centered exclusively around Calvin's family and friends stand out due to the different perspectives they provide.

5 Calvin's Dad Has Relatable Memory Struggles

Human Memory Has A Cruel Sense Of Humor

Calvin's dad summarizes an experience everyone may recognize, regardless of age. Even though he doesn't find it particularly important or exciting, he can't forget the old advertisement jingle that got stuck in his head two dozen years ago. And yet, he can't remember what he was about to do when he entered the room. Indeed, it's a universal experience to preserve completely useless fragments of everyday memories from decades ago while allowing important thoughts from less than thirty seconds earlier to disappear without a trace.

Calvin's childhood adventures contrast with his parents' everyday absurdity. Calvin's mom and dad rarely find themselves in extraordinary situations if their child doesn't pull them into one. Still, something as simple as a dad trying to reconstruct his own train of thought only to discover that his memory has prioritized an advertisement jingle can be just as funny.

4 Susie Only Needs A Hundred Friends To Stop Feeling Alone

Susie Feels Vulnerable When She Fights With Her Only Friend

Susie Derkins' dream of having a hundred new friends is her more heartbreaking Calvin and Hobbes appearance. When Susie feels like her one good friend doesn't care for her, she imagines an entire crowd large enough to guarantee that she will never feel unwanted again. However, gaining enough friends to stop relying on Calvin appears just as unattainable in her mind as getting a pony. Her fantasy says something deeper about childhood loneliness than a simple gag about popularity. A child can be surrounded by classmates and still feel isolated.

Susie and Calvin's constant clashes may often make them seem like enemies, but there's usually a genuine affection behind their mutual annoyance. Calvin's mischievous personality often runs ahead of his judgment, and his attempts to annoy Susie rarely have the intention of hurting her emotions. He enjoys getting a reaction from her, and Susie's pride makes her particularly satisfying to provoke. Susie usually maintains a composed, self-confident exterior, which makes her private fantasies of a larger friend circle so revealing.

3 Calvin's Dad Gets Distracted While Cleaning The House

Calvin's Father Is Enamored By His Hobby

When Calvin's dad finally decides to tackle the house's spring cleaning, it's only a matter of time until his beloved bicycle steals all his attention. Cleaning a house almost always looks manageable before anyone actually starts. There's always a long-forgotten object that suddenly decides to return after years in hiding, or one small task somehow expands into an entirely different project. Calvin's dad simply gives his natural tendency toward distraction a very wholesome destination. He approaches the bike with the enthusiasm of a child who has just discovered a fascinating new toy.

Calvin's dad's bike is a recurring gag in Calvin and Hobbes, as it quickly becomes one of the few things in his life that completely absorb his attention once he tries it for the first time. In its first appearance, the bike leads him to fall, get attacked by bees and dogs, and develop a backache, only for him to arrive home and excitedly tell his wife that he's thinking about upgrading it right away. Failure does nothing to diminish his fascination; if anything, it gives him another reason to become even more invested in his hobby.

2 Calvin's Mom Forgets Hobbes Is A Stuffed Toy

Calvin's Love For Hobbes Is So Strong His Mother Enters The Illusion

Calvin's mom and dad searching for Hobbes is already a touching setup, but the gag is even sweeter when his mother calls out for Calvin's inanimate friend before she suddenly remembers what she's doing. For a brief moment, she slips completely into Calvin's perspective and treats Hobbes as though he were an actual person who might hear her. Calvin's mother understands, at least on some level, how real Hobbes is in her son's imagination. She has spent enough time around Calvin's adventures to recognize that this stuffed tiger acts as a genuine friend in his life.

While Calvin's mom and dad often respond to his elaborate schemes with disbelief or exhaustion and they rarely participate directly in the fantastical world of his imagination, they understand that Hobbes is a brother figure to Calvin, and mom's instinct to help find him comes from taking Calvin's feelings seriously even when she doesn't share his perception of reality. Adults may eventually lose much of the imaginative intensity they had as children, but Calvin's parents have enough of it left to momentarily meet their son on his own terms.

1 Children's Imagination Runs Wild When There's Less Homework

Calvin's Dad Is The Accidental Audience Of A Spontaneous Work Of Art

The incredibly large and detailed snowmen sculptures Calvin's dad finds on his way home create a unique Calvin and Hobbes gag that approaches the central theme of childhood imagination from a fresh angle. Calvin, Hobbes, and the children responsible for the snow are left completely off-page, and it's Calvin's dad who sees the final product of their creativity from the eyes of a busy adult. Parents might see the snowmen as a side effect of the children not having enough duties to occupy their minds on, but children see them as a celebration of their precious free time.

The kids create elaborate artworks without anyone instructing them to do so. The snowmen exist purely for the pleasure of making them, and their scale suggests how much patience and imagination they have available. Calvin's dad may tease the apparent lack of homework, but his reaction also acknowledges the impressive results of giving children enough freedom to create. This Calvin and Hobbes gag seems relevant in a culture where children's schedules are crowded with schoolwork and constant digital stimulation long before they have to face the duties of busy adults like Calvin's dad.

Which Calvin and Hobbes not featuring the titular duo is your favorite?