We all know that Calvin loves to irritate Susie and gross her out with his "weird" lunches....She is also Calvin's snowball/slushball target during winter. Calvin also formed G.R.O.S.S. with Hobbes just to irritate her during summer. She is a nice girl but I guess it's hard being nice to Calvin...

Bill says..."Susie is earnest, serious, and smart - the kind of girl I was attracted to in school and eventually married. "Derkins" was the nickname of my wife's family's beagle. The early strips with Susie were heavy-handed with the love-hate conflict, and it's taken me a while to get a bead on Susie's relationship with Calvin.

"I suspect Calvin has a mild crush on her that he expresses by trying to annoy her, but Susie is a bit unnerved and put off by Calvin's weirdness. This encourages Calvin to be even weirder, so it's a good dynamic. Neither of them quite understand what's going on , which is probably true of most relationships. I sometimes imagine a strip from Susie's point of view would be interesting , and after so many strips about boys , I think a strip about a little girl , drawn by a woman , could be great." ...Watterson concluded.



Dad and Mom..." are Calvin's parents. I have always wondered what is Calvin's mom and dad's name is. Bill Watterson said that he has never given them names, because as far as the strip is concerned, they are important only as Calvin's mum and dad.

Watterson says..."Calvin's dad has been rumoured to be a self-potrait. All my characters are half me, so it's true in some ways, but Calvin's dad is also partly a satire of my father. Any strip about how sufferings 'build character' is usually a verbatim transcipt of my dad's explanations for why we were all freezing, exhausted, hungry, and lost on camping trips. These things are a lot funnier after twenty-five years have passed.

"Calvin's mom is the daily disciplination, a job that taxes her sanity, so I don't think we get to see her at her best. I regret that the strip usually shows her impatient side, I try to hint at other aspects of her personality and her interest by what she's doing when Calvin barges in." explained Bill Watterson in the Calvin and Hobbes 10th anniversary book.

"Earlier on, Calvin's parents were criticized by readers for being unloving and needlessly sarcastic. (Calvin's dad has remarked that what he really wanted was a dog.) At the same time, I think it was unusual for a comic to concentrate on the exasperating aspects of kids without a lot of hugs and sentimentality to leaven it. We usually only see Calvin's parents when they are reacting to Calvin, so as secondary characters, I've tried to keep them realistic, with a reasonable sense of humor about having a kid like Calvin. I think they do a better job than I would."



Miss Wormwood... Calvin's Elementary School teacher. She faces lots of problems with Calvin as his mind tends to wander to a world of his own during her lessons. She usually freaks out and sends Calvin to face the principal regularly due to his cheeky ways. She is probably waiting for the day Calvin finally leaves school.

According to Bill Watterson in his book....."As a few readers guessed, Miss Wormwood is named after the apperentice devil in C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters. I have a lot of sympathy for Miss Wormwood. We see hints that she's waiting to retire, smokes too much, and takes a lot of medication. I think she seriously believes in value of education, so needless to say, she's an unhappy person."

Moe...the "class bully" - Calvin's nightmare. He often threatens to beat up Calvin in gym class, takes things from him and even extorts money. Calvin usually carrries out Moe's demands because he has learnt his lesson - never argue with a six year old who shaves...

"Moe is every jerk I've ever known. He is big, dumb, ugly, and cruel. I remember school being full of idiots like Moe. I think they spawn on damp locker room floors," said Bill Watterson.

Rosalyn...Calvin's baby-sitter. Mom and Dad calls her whenever they want to go out because she is the only person who is willing to baby-sit Calvin. She does this to earn some extra pocket money. During her duty...she occasionally phones her boyfriend, Charlie. Calvin will usually snatch the phone and try to discourage Charlie from dating Rosalyn...

Watterson said...."Probably the only person Calvin fears is his baby-sitter. I put her in Sunday strips earlier on, never thinking of her as a regular character, but her intimidation of Calvin surprised me, so she's made a few appearences ever since. Rosalyn even seems to daunt Calvin's parents, using their desperation , to get out of the house to demand advances and raises. Rosalyn's relationship with Calvin is pretty one-dimensional, so baby-sitter stories get harder and harder to write, but for a later addiction to the strip, she's worked pretty well."