Wednesday links

August 21st is Dorothy Parker's birthday: quotes, poems, a brief bio, and the weird journey of her ashes

How Not to Get Eaten After Sex (If You're a Black Widow)

This 1960s Comic Strip Claimed Nuclear Explosions Were the Future of Road Construction. Related, in this optimistic 1957 Disney classroom film Our Friend the Atom, radioactive isotopes are depicted as a sparkling, magic dust sprinkled as plant fertilizer and in animal feed.

The World War of the Ants – The Army Ant.

Whatever Happened to the Wild Camels of the American West?

Comics Published by the Federal Government.

ICYMI, most recent links are here, and include the anniversary of the death of Genghis Khan, how easily rats can swim up your toilet, 19th century cancer treatment, alien abduction insurance, and lightbulb history.

Friday links

Beware - It's the Ides of March. Related: when Julius Caesar was kidnapped by pirates, he insisted on a higher ransom.

Couple has eaten at the same restaurant six nights a week for 15 years.

Spring Cleaning in the 19th Century - it's a lot easier now.

Saint Patrick’s Day: origin, history, quotes, poetry, videos, and how to make your own green beer. Related, this excellent Biologist’s St. Patrick’s Day Song and why four-leaf clovers are considered lucky.

Seat Belt History: The Patent That Was Given Away.

Digital Comic Museum has pretty much every comic ever published.

ICYMI, Thursday's links are here, and include Pi Day, secrets of the world's greatest art thief, videos on making medieval manuscripts, and Einstein's birthday (including the post-mortem travels of his brain)

Geek with a lot of time on his hands calculated how much Calvin & Hobbes cost Calvin’s parents in damages

From TwentyTwo Words:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that it costs parents somewhere in the vicinity of $250,000 to raise a child through the age of 17. This includes everything from food and housing down to toothbrushes and coloring books.

Larger version here

What the projected expense does not include, however, is how much it costs to replace things that kids ruin — repainting crayoned walls, buying new dishes when they break, replacing the garage door because the teen doesn’t really know how to drive very well yet.

These costs add up and yet they don’t get a line in the budget. Matt J. Michel, editor at Proceedings of the Natural Institute of Science, decided to estimate this number for the rest of us.

And since no one documents these costs as they raise kids, he decided to use Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes (wiki) as his test subject, assuming that Calvin — inventively wild as he was — would be a reasonable worst-case scenario for the rest of us to base our budgeted damages on.

Michel then went through the complete collection of Calvin and Hobbes comics and noted every bit of damage caused by Calvin or Hobbes that Bill Watterson actually portrayed or specifically mentioned.

Over the course of his decade as a 6-year-old, Calvin caused an estimated $15,955.50 in damage. To break it down a bit more, Calvin cost his parents, on average, $1,850.55 per year.

Along with his results, Michel notes…

It should be reiterated that Calvin is presented as a worst-case scenario. If you believe your child does more than $1,850.55 in damage annually, then you may want to consider professional help, alternative forms of punishment, or, at the very least, take away their stuffed tiger.

Related:

Calvin and Hobbes Creator Bill Watterson Returns to the Comics Page (Briefly).

Calvin and Muad'Dib: Calvin and Hobbes goes really well with Dune.

Cool - Calvin and Hobbes Creator Bill Watterson Returns to the Comics Page (Briefly)

Bill Watterson, 1986 file photo

First, some background - Bill Watterson, who ended the Calvin and Hobbes (wiki) cartoon strip on December 31, 1995 (see the ambiguous final panel near the bottom of this post), is notoriously publicity-shy. There is only one publicly available photo of him in existence. In fact, legend has it that when Steven Spielberg called to see if he wanted to make a movie, Bill wouldn’t even take the call. 

Recently he did an audio-only interview for a documentary about newspaper comics entitled Stripped, and provided artwork for a poster (left).

So, back to our story. Stephan Pastis, creator of the Pearls Before Swine comic strip (and author of Pearls Falls Fast), had an exchange with the reclusive Watterson in which he (Watterson) offered to draw three panels for Pearls, with the caveat that he (Pastis) not reveal Watterson's involvement until all three of his strips had run, which they did last week:

He said he knew that in my strip, I frequently make fun of my own art skills. And that he thought it would be funny to have me get hit on the head or something and suddenly be able to draw. Then he’d step in and draw my comic strip for a few days.

Pastis, of course, jumped at the idea, with this counter-proposal:

The idea I proposed was that instead of having me get hit on the head, I would pretend that Pearls was being drawn by a precocious second grader who thought my art was crap. I named her “Libby,” which I then shorted to “Lib.” (Hint, hint: It’s almost “Bill” backwards.)

Read Pastis' whole story here. The results of the collaboration are below:

Calvin and Hobbes final strip:

Here's a trailer for a recent tribute film, Dear Mr. Watterson:

More Calvin and Hobbes comic strips are here, and a Mental Floss interview with Watterson is here. via Fark.