If you are: nostalgic for way-back when you looked forward to your parents getting done with the Sunday paper, curious to see how newspaper comics have taken to the digital age, or just want another comic to read… You should binge Crabgrass.
If you read comics on Instagram (AKA Instagram comics), it won’t take too many to see that the genre leans much more comfortably on the newspaper comic side for the comic spectrum of newspaper-to-graphic novel. The small size and uniformity of the visual space on Instagram makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to pull off the more eccentric compositions available to artists who have an entire 8 1/2 by 11 to work with. The limits encourage creativity and no one was more a champion of the medium than Bill Watterson, most famously known for Calvin and Hobbes. With the announcement of his return after 18 years, it seems an apt time to introduce a comic that channels some of the appeal of Calvin and Hobbes.
Overview
Written by Tauhid Bondia, Crabgrass is a slice-of-life comedy built on the friendship between two boys, Miles and Kevin, as they navigate childhood. School, bullies, siblings, parents, friendship, etc. are explored to paint a complicated world of childhood – much like the newspaper comic Calvin and Hobbes. The comparison between Crabgrass and Calvin and Hobbes is not only obvious but admitted. Both are warm appreciative looks at childhood, specifically boyhood, that are deeply interested in the inner lives of children. Bondia even takes some of the gags from Calvin and Hobbes, putting his own spin on them – a spin that readers of Calvin and Hobbes may find softer, gentler, and more understanding.
For the uninitiated or those born in this century, Calvin and Hobbes was about a boy – Calvin – and his imaginary friend/stuffed tiger – Hobbes – as Calvin navigated his life as an adolescent. Though the comic features numerous moments of warmth, a general survey of the comic gives the sense that Calvin was under siege. Parents, school, bullies, etc. all seemed arrayed against him. The comic would often feature Calvin walking through the snow with Hobbes, railing against a world dead set on breaking him. Nowhere was this more succinctly put than in the “Bad Day” gag. The gag would feature a routine day of Calvin’s: woken up, missing the bus, failing at school, eating yucky cafeteria food, playing alone, struggling with homework, forced into a bath. etc. with the punchline being the relief of reuniting with Hobbes or dreading another day like it. A perfect encapsulation of the daily stressors of a child.
While there is nostalgic gold for an older audience to be found in Crabgrass, the heart of the comic shows in its takes on the bits from Calvin. Kevin’s Bad Day starts with him skateboarding and then having the world’s worst string of bad interactions ending with him waiting for the bus in a cast. It replaces the existential dread of Calvin with absurd slapstick humor. And that’s the heart of Crabgrass, it’s wholesome fun. It’s truly fun to watch Miles and Kevin interact with each other and the world at large. In an age when friendships, especially male friendships, especially adult male friendships, are often complicated, complex, and strenuous; it’s comforting to be able to return to a time when relationships were as simple and easy as being the same age in the same neighborhood.
Script and Illustrations by Tauhid Bondia
Crabgrass is a celebration of being a child. Calvin and Hobbes ran during a time when the prevailing theory was that children should be seen and not heard. They were to be coerced into an adult shape – or “building character” as Calvin’s dad would have put it. On the other hand, Crabgrass is written now, in an age of “gentle parenting” and Bluey. Where children aren’t seen as proto-persons, but persons in and of themselves. If Calvin and Hobbes is a revolutionary cry against the pressures on children then Crabgrass is the song of victory, proclaiming childhood to be a time of exploratory thriving rather than introspective survival.
The only way to decide for yourself would be to binge Crabgrass.
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