1995 by W. Joseph Campbell

Author:W. Joseph Campbell [Campbell, W. Joseph]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780520273993
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Conclusion

The Long Reach of 1995

Nineteen ninety-five closed the way it began—on a Sunday, with the farewell appearance of a popular newspaper comic.

The delightfully bizarre Far Side, a single-panel cartoon drawn by the low-profile artist Gary Larson, entered retirement on January 1, 1995, ending a fifteen-year parade of oddities and lighthearted grotesqueries that included talking bears, cows driving cars, and dinosaurs facing extinction from smoking cigarettes. It was half-seriously suggested that Larson decided to give up The Far Side because it had become more and more “difficult to out-weird the rest of the newspaper.”1 In an interview before ending the strip, Larson said his “humor is sometimes on the dark side, or whatever you want to call it. But I don’t think that’s altogether unhealthy.”2 Not at all: The Far Side was inspired in its quirky weirdness. Its final installment was a takeoff on the closing scene of The Wizard of Oz and depicted Larson waking up in bed at home, after an extended visit to a strange place populated by cavemen, monsters, and nerdy little kids.

The year closed with publication of the last original Calvin and Hobbes, drawn by Bill Watterson, who also was famously publicity-shy. “My interests have shifted,” Watterson told his syndicate in giving up the strip after a ten-year run, “and I believe I’ve done what I can do within the constraints of daily deadlines and small panels.”3 The retirement of Calvin and Hobbes marked the passing of a “national cultural treasure,” one critic said4 about the consistently imaginative strip that featured the antics of a mischievous six-year-old named Calvin and his stuffed-tiger straight man, Hobbes. In the exclusive company of Calvin, Hobbes became a lithe, wise-cracking tiger, six feet tall.5 In the valedictory strip on December 31, 1995, the boy and his tiger set off into a brilliant landscape of newly fallen snow. “It’s a magical world, Hobbes, ol’ buddy,” Calvin exclaimed, launching a toboggan down a snowy hill. “Let’s go exploring.”

There was something eccentric and droll about a year bracketed by the leave-taking of immensely popular comics. Their departures were coincidental, just happening to fall on the first and last days of 1995. Even so, they respectively anticipated and confirmed 1995 as a year of notable watersheds. It was, as we have seen, a decisive year, the time when the Internet entered the mainstream of American life; when terrorism reached deep into the American heartland with devastating effect; when the “Trial of the Century” enthralled and repelled the country and brought forensic DNA to the popular consciousness; when diplomatic success at Dayton gave rise to a period of American muscularity in foreign affairs; and when the president and an unpaid White House intern began a furtive and intermittent dalliance that would shake the American government and lead to the extraordinary spectacle of impeachment.

Given that it was a year of milestones, it is not surprising that 1995 extends a long reach: it is a year that matters still. The major events and leading actors of 1995 return to the public eye from time to time to command attention and commentary.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.