A playful mind is inquisitive, and learning is fun. If you indulge your natural curiosity and retain a sense of fun in new experience, I think you'll find it functions as a sort of shock absorber for the bumpy road ahead.

Dad: Honey, have you seen my glasses? I can"t find them. Mom: I haven't seen them. Calvin: (with glasses, to Dad) Calvin, go do something you hate! Being miserable builds character!

The syndicates take the strip and sell it to newspapers and split the income with the cartoonists. Syndicates are essentially agents. Now, can you imagine a novelist giving his literary agent the ownership of his characters and all reprint, television, and movie rights before the agent takes the manuscript to a publisher? Obviously, an author would have to be a raving lunatic to agree to such a deal, but virtually every cartoonist does exactly that when a syndicate demands ownership before agreeing to sell the strip to newspapers.

If you've got more ambiguous characters or stock stereotypes, the plastic comes through and they don't work as well.

Miss Wormwood: Calvin, your test was an absolute disgrace! It's obvious you haven't read any of the material. Our first president was not Chef Boy-Ar-Dee and you ought to be ashamed to have turned in such preposterous answers! Calvin: I just don't test well.

You know what's the rage this year? ...Hats.

CALVIN: Our hero regains consciousness at the feet of a sarcastic alien.