In "Reason to be Excited," I spotlight things from modern comics that I think are worth getting excited about. I mean stuff more specific than "this comic is good," ya know? More like a specific bit from a writer or artist that impressed me. Today, we look at Daniel Kibblesmith's brilliant parody of the adult Calvin comic strips. Let me start off by saying that I admit it. Daniel Kibblesmith got me. He totally got me. Hook, line and sinker. When my pal (and Comics Should Be Good co-founder) Joe Rice shared a terrible "Adult Calvin and Hobbes" comic strip, I believed that it was legit. Joe thought it was legit, too, as did many others, so it's not just us, but as a guy who is all about being skeptical, I was taken in. That's just how good of a job Daniel Kibblesmith did with his script for this comic. The iconic Calvin and Hobbes comic strip by Bill Watterson ended nearly 25 years ago (like, we're talking VERY close to 25 years ago exactly) and there has been nothing but book collections of the characters since, which is how Watterson wants it. When he speaks of merchandising, he says that it would "violate the spirit of the strip, contradict its message, and take me away from the work I loved."When it comes to doing a movie version, he explains, "The visual sophistication of Pixar blows me away, but I have zero interest in animating Calvin and Hobbes. If you've ever compared a film to a novel it’s based on, you know the novel gets bludgeoned. It’s inevitable, because different media have different strengths and needs, and when you make a movie, the movie’s needs get served. As a comic strip, Calvin and Hobbes works exactly the way I intended it to. There’s no upside for me in adapting it."This is a guy who wants the character's story to be finished and he luckily (for him) has the control to do so. However, this has led to a veritable cottage industry of mawkish unofficial comic strips featuring adult Calvin. I'm not talking parodies, as parodies are always fine. I'm never going to say, "Don't parody something," as that's obviously always a respected part of art and culture. But that's not what these things are, they'e just trading off of our affection for the actual Calvin and Hobbes for some cheap sentiment. Well, Daniel Kibblesmith, who just wrote the excellent Loki series for Marvel, decided to take things to extreme in September by writing the ULTIMATE terrible Adult Calvin comic strip script. Here it is in all of its horrible glory...

Twitter user Leaujacques drew it as a strip...

And, of course, because of Poe's Law, which reads that "without a clear indicator of the author's intent, it is impossible to create a parody of extreme views so obviously exaggerated that it cannot be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of the views being parodied," this parody has begun being shared and APPRECIATED earnestly. Joe shared it with me (and others) to be angry at how bad it is and instead, we eventually learned (I assume my pal Loren Collins figured out) that it came from Kibblesmith and now, instead of anger, there is only appreciation for him.

Well done, sir!

Okay, this feature is a bit less of a reader-interactive one, as I'm just spotlight stuff in modern comics that specifically impressed ME, but heck, if you'd like to send in some suggestions anyways, maybe you and I have the same taste! It's certainly not improbably that something you found cool would be something that I found cool, too, so feel free to send ideas to me at brianc@cbr.com!