The Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, by Watterson, features two characters, a tiger, and a young boy. These two are seen to be jumping around the forest while talking. The boy, who speaks the majority of the time, is describing his controversial points of view. The colors and images chosen show the simplicity of the comic strip, targeted towards a younger audience. The type of caricatures that they have chosen assimilates those used for younger audiences, such as Winnie the Pooh, peanuts, and garfield. 

The young kid predominantly states throughout the comic how, “The ends justify the means”, a common phrase used by many, yet hypocritical, since as soon as those who enforce this get affected by someone with the same morals, they get irritated and enraged. It can be seen how moments later after the kid stated this phrase, his companion, the tiger, pushed him into a puddle of mudd, repeating after him “The ends justify the means”. This enrages the young kid, as he states “Why’d you do that”, and, “I didn't mean for everyone, you dolt just me!”, and the tiger calmly walks away. In these parts of the comic strip, the text changes, as certain words are being bolded. The bolded words give more connotation to the meaning of the text. If this was written in a book, the readers would tend to overlook the anger that this child is going through while being pushed into facing the same consequences that he views as ideal yet only for his own. When he states “Why’d you do that”, all words are being bolded, and the last in italics, this shows the shock that the young kid was facing when he was pushed. As the tiger explains “You were in my way. Now you are not. The ends justify the means”, the kid gets more enraged by stating that that moral went for everyone but him, bolding two words, everyone and me. Once again this shows the hypocrisy of the young child, as he expects that he can step over everyone, but as soon as people respond in the same manner he acts enraged by this. The bolding in these parts, show emotion that the kid is displaying, as it makes it clear to the readers and audience that he is infuriated by these actions. This can go back to a well known phrase that states, treat others the way you want to be treated. This phrase is common, and taught mainly to the youth, so that they learn at early stages of their life to take consciousness of their actions and think them through. 

Not only does Calvin and Hobbes use bolded letters to underline emotions and meanings, but they also utilize colors. There can be seen a clear change of color in the speech bubbles of the young kid, once he is pushed in the mud. In the 7th piece of comic strip there is the first change of color, from white to pink text. Colors like pink and red normally tend to be colors of anger, or possibly even symbolize blood. The pink that has been chosen is a light pink, representing that the severity of the consequences of their own actions are not as extreme as it could be in other cases. As the color gets darker it means how there are more possible consequences even worse, possibly symbolizing bloodshed. This could go back to a theme of war, hidden in the comic strip, that has to be deciphered by looking more into this. In a book, these types of analysis would not be able to be interpreted, as color would not be added, showing the importance of this being written as a comic strip. 

Although this piece was published in 1989, this cartoon is one of the few that can be described as timeless, as even though 33 years have passed since its publishing, people can still correctly interpret and understand the meaning. Many may take this as political, since throughout history many nations have shown no mercy to other countries and overstepped them, yet when these other nations respond in the same way they view this as an insult and enraged by this, they name it a possible act of war.  Even in today's world it can be seen how constantly countries step over the limit of other countries, expecting them to not react and defend themselves back, since they can only do these things, and if someone else does this, it is seen as inhumane.  

To conclude, through colors, images and bold text, the simple comic strip can be analyzed even deeper than what it might seem to be. At first glance it might seem like a childs comic strip, that only deserves to be read once, and then left, but once this is deeply analyzed, other meanings can be found within, relating to the world and issues that never seem to leave.

A: 3

B: 3

C: 3

D: 4

This is a good written response, that not only shows understanding and interpretative skill, but is also written with appropriate register and academic tone. Despite some clear understanding and ability to analyse and evaluate, the structure lets it down. Without a clear thesis nor analytical points in the topic sentences, at times it feels like a running commentary that can be descriptive rather than evaluative. Moreover, it is not always sharply focused around the guiding question even if it is generally responded to within the body of the analysis.

For an introduction, I would always say less is more. Many students try to tell the examiner everything they know about the text, or everything they've worked out, in the introduction alone. This should be saved for the body of the analysis. The introduction should be simple and clear, preferably with some comment that identifies the key ideas of the text. Crucially, it should have a thesis statement that sets out the map of the analytical response:

One of the great truisms is that we, as people, tend to voice strong opinions about the world, only to act in the opposite way when it comes to our own lives. Psychologists call this cognitive dissonance, George Orwell called it ‘doublethink’, and many others merely say we are all capable of great hypocrisy. This is evident in the comic strip, Calvin & Hobbes, produced by Watterson in 1989. Through the characterisation of Calvin and Hobbes, the structure of the narrative and the illustrative shifts from panel to panel, and the synergy of text and image, Watterson presents a comic reflection on the flaws of this kind of human thinking.

It's going to be very important to ensure that the body paragraphs - and you'll probably only have time to write two in the examination - explore the thematic meaning of the text through the features of the text type, as well as directly addressing the guiding question. I would recommend that one of them makes the guiding question explicit in the topic sentence, too, to avoid the examiner missing its central focus. Therefore, for this response outlined in the thesis statement above, I would make the first body paragraph about the characterisation of Calvin and Hobbes and the illustrative shifts from panel to panel (all aimed at some kind of thematic effect, rather than just "to entertain the reader"):

Watterson employs a narrative structure conveyed through the journey of Calvin and Hobbes across the panels that builds up to the twist of the comic and Calvin’s literal fall from grace. Through the use of a splash panel for the title, and an important, zoomed-in close-up borderless panel where Calvin, in a borderless, jagged speech bubble, pontificates about his new philosophical learning about how the ends justify the means, we see the narrative build up to a climax and a resolution. Their characters are presented as Calvin as the leader (smaller though he is than his imaginary tiger friend), and he is the one who leads Hobbes both physically during the walk in the woods and symbolically through the fact that he is the main speaker in the dialogue. This is evident in the first two rows of the comic, as they examine the woods, look under rocks, and hop and skip across stones all up until the moment in panel five when Calvin, thus far the leader, stops and pumps his fist as he draws his conclusion about ‘Get[ting] what you can while the getting’s good,’ emphasising the importance of this moment of realisation, when he says, ‘That’s what I say!’ with the ‘I’ bolded and italicised to highlight the tone of this discovery and the climax of this journey through the panels.

It's important that the next paragraph doesn't just repeat the previous one or become a running commentary - i.e. I've described the first half of the text to you, and now let me describe the second half! As said before, it is also important that it addresses the guiding question directly. In this case, a look at the ending and the twist of the narrative - a conventional part of the comic and the way it contrives an amusing ending - all through the focus of the partnership between the text (the words) and the images should be successful:

Furthermore, the synergy of text and image particularly in the final section of the comic allows for a conventionally comedic ending and the light-hearted recognition of the hypocrisy of human nature. The second row and sixth panel ends with Calvin looking clear but determined by his new understanding of the world, and Hobbes alongside looking pensive. Unexpectedly, as the comic moves to the final row, Calvin is pushed by Hobbes and dramatically yelps with plewds flying from his face. While we don’t see Calvin’s fall - it happens in the gutter between panels - we see the consequence when he is buried in a mud swamp and appears to be crying like someone of his real age. The ‘Why’d you do that?!?’ is capitalised, bolded and exclaimed, and Hobbes is almost taunting him with his innocent repetition of Calvin’s maxim, ‘The ends justify the means,’ explaining (in the only speech he has in the entire text) that Calvin, in his leadership role, was physically and no doubt metaphorically ‘in [his] way’. The final panel, and the final twist in which the thematic message of the comic is expressed, is with Calvin revealing the hypocritical nature of us all when he says, ‘I didn’t mean for everyone… Just me!’ This speech, and Hobbes’ reply - a simple and possibly sincere, ‘Ahh…’ - is in pink, perhaps highlighting that this is the heart of the issue expressed, as is conventional in comics, in the final panel.

A simple conclusion in which you reiterate your findings according to the guiding question in light of the evidence provided, with something pithy and memorable connected to the message of the text, is a great way to end:

A great comic strip presents thought-provoking ideas with an element of humour, and usually presents a twist or punchline in the final panel. Calvin & Hobbes is famous for also presenting such philosophical views on the world through the eyes of a precocious child who, at key moments, reminds us of his youth and naivety. In this particular comic, Calvin effectively leads the journey of realisation both physically and verbally until, in Hobbes’ only speaking moment, he points out that Calvin’s belief in the end justifying the means is never as appealing when it is turned on oneself. As Groucho Marx famously said, paraphrasing an unknown US politician: ‘These are my principles. If you don’t like them, I have others.’