Latest news with #CalvinandHobbes
NZ Herald
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- NZ Herald
Kirikiriroa Hamilton Zinefest 2025: Event now in its 11th year and tripled in size
After a year of art school, she dropped out and went looking for ways to experiment with art. She had seen Hamilton Zinefest before, but decided only in 2017 to become a stallholder. 'I realised this is a completely accessible thing for me to try out. I put together a few illustrations in a comic style to see what happened and it turned out to be a really fun and positive experience,' she said. She was amazed by the encouragement she got from members of the public and other creatives about her narrative zines, which caused her to remember something. 'When I was a little kid, that was my dream job, an author-illustrator, but I guess I forgot about it,' she said. 'I realised this is actually what I've been wanting to do the whole time.' Harper works at local art supplies retailer Gordon Harris. She said working there enabled her to explore using different mediums, including watercolour, which she now prefers and showcased in her poster. '[The poster illustration] looks like a very sweet ... scene when you first look at it. But there are funny little details that catch your interest.' Like a Frankenstein hand-pouring tea, a typewriter, floating candles, and a cookie-stealing tentacle, which when put together become what Harper calls, 'a little celebration of weirdness'. Drawing inspiration from classical illustration and Halloween themes, Harper's design also reflects her love of Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes. 'I was obsessed with that as a kid, and I can definitely see the sense of humour influencing some of my work. I really liked his narrative style, too,' she said. Harper's playful mix of spooky and sweet imagery continues into her tongue-in-cheek zines. Since joining the Zinefest community, Harper has branched out to attend other festivals and thinks moving Hamilton's event to the library has helped it grow. 'It can attract lots and lots of different people, and it's very welcoming,' she said. 'I tabled next to a couple of kids who were there with their parents once, and they had a great time.' While some stallholders have been making zines for years, others will be just starting out. 'There's not a sense of competition or that you have to work to a certain standard,' Harper said. 'If you have a little bit of an interest in doing something creative, then just give it a go.' For those who are keen to try their hand at zinemaking, but still need some inspiration, there will be zine-making workshops ahead of the market day. Zines for Mana Motuhake – May 7, 2.30pm at Waikato Museum with Cassandra Barnett Kids Collaborative Collage Zine – May 8, 3.30pm at Hamilton Central Library with Horiana Henderson Poetry Zine Workshop – May 10, 2pm at Rototuna Library with Aimee-Jane Anderson-O'Connor Mini Zines for Kids Workshop – May 15, 3.30pm at St Andrews Library with Natalie Coates Mine Zines for Teens Workshop – date & time TBC at Raglan Library with Fe Foster On the day, there will also be a collaborative zine-making zone, Zinester Awards in eight categories and an all-ages After Party featuring live music from Moon Hotene (Kirikiriroa), Varda (Te Whanganui-a-Tara).
Forbes
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
‘NYT Mini' Clues And Answers For Wednesday, April 30
Mini Crossword NYT If you're looking for the answers to the Tuesday, April 29 NYT Mini, those are here: The NYT Mini is a quick and dirty version of the newspaper's larger and long-running crossword. Most days, there are between three and five clues in each direction on a five by five grid, but the puzzles are sometimes larger, especially on Saturdays. Unlike its larger sibling, the NYT Mini crossword is free to play on the New York Times website or NYT Games app. However, you'll need an NYT Games subscription to access previous puzzles in the archives. The NYT Mini is a fun daily distraction that usually takes no time at all. I try to beat the standard weekday grid in less than a minute. But sometimes I can't quite figure out one or two clues and need to reveal the answer. To help you avoid doing that, here are the NYT Mini Crossword answers (spoilers lie ahead, of course): ACROSS 1) Picture holder - FRAME6) New spin on an old song - REMIX7) Cream of the crop - ELITE8) Hobbes in "Calvin and Hobbes," for one - TIGER9) Profit = revenue – ___ - TIGER DOWN 1) Agonize (over) - FRET2) Item in Indiana Jones's satchel, perhaps - RELIC3) Compadre - AMIGO4) Itty-bitty biters - MITE5) Wield, as influence - EXERT NYT Mini NYT Well, I don't know what to tell you, but that might have just been the easiest Mini I've ever done. 32 seconds start to finish. Just nothing hard in here at all for me at least. I got four of the five across words essentially immediately which just left Elite, but that was made clear soon enough. I certainly did not need my econ degree for profit = revenue - cost, which I do actually have. Hopefully tomorrow will bring a harder puzzle. Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Bluesky and Instagram. Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
Buzz Feed
10-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
17 Celebrities Who Used To Be Pretty Famous But Are Totally Normal Now
Sometimes, famous people decide they don't want to be famous anymore — so they go do something else completely. Redditor u/ YOPF recently asked the people of Reddit to name celebrities who live normal lives now, and suffice to say, it's a real trip down memory lane: 3. "Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin and Hobbes, refused to license his work out and retired when the comics were huge at 37. He walked away from potentially hundreds of millions because he thought it would jeopardize the integrity of his art through commercializing it. He lives in a modest neighborhood in Cleveland." —u/ sroop1 4. "Queen's John Deacon. He lives quietly and has minimal contact with Queen, though they do run ideas by him as a courtesy." —u/ alfienoakes 10. "Erik Estrada, who played officer Francis Llewellyn 'Ponch' Poncherello on CHiPs, became a real-life police officer in Saint Anthony, Idaho." —u/ vieniaida 13. "Greta Garbo was the biggest movie star in the world throughout the 1930s. She made her last movie in 1941, at the age of 36. She then spent the next 50 years living alone in a New York apartment. She was known for taking daily walks around Manhattan, and ' Garbo-spotting ' was a popular New York activity in the '60s, '70s, and '80s." —u/ Arkeolog Bettmann / Bettmann Archive 17. "Chad Muska is a now a vegetable farmer a few hours outside of Cleveland." —u/ tobias19
Los Angeles Times
07-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Jay North, as Dennis the Menace, radiated an indelible brightness
As the title character in the midcentury sitcom 'Dennis the Menace,' Jay North, who died Sunday at 73, was among my first TV stars, even before I had a notion of what a TV star was. And he was definitely a star — billed over the adults who played his parents and perennially put-upon neighbor Mr. Wilson, memorably played by the great Joseph Kearns. I lived as a child on a double dose of Dennis, in the daily paper, where Hank Ketcham's character first saw life in 1951, and on TV. I suppose I was aware of the show, which ran originally from 1959 to 1963 and in reruns for many years thereafter — it's currently available on Peacock and sundry other platforms — before the comic, because I certainly watched TV before I could read. (Though, come to think of it, the comics may have been read to me — oh, the great days of the funny pages.) North's first television appearance was as a guest on the local L.A. kids' show 'Engineer Bill's Cartoon Express,' where he was spotted by a talent agent; small parts in various TV dramas and a couple of feature films led to 'Dennis,' where he was poured into the iconic costume — overalls, striped shirt, with a slingshot poking out of a back pocket and a cowlick sticking up like a car antenna from the back of his head. Dennis is 5 years old in the comic; the actor was 8 when he began to play him and would continue until he was 12, by which time he was allowed at least to trade the overalls for trousers. (I was enough of a baby TV critic even then to feel the cognitive dissonance.) The godfather of Calvin (of 'Calvin and Hobbes') and Bart Simpson, Dennis is, unlike them, very much a child; he has no adult thoughts, he's not an instrument for satire. He's not a smart-aleck, or a little devil. He is cheerful and serious, even about play. He's afraid of nothing, confident in his own ideas, the way many children are and most later learn not to be, and secure in the knowledge that everyone loves him, even those who don't particularly. Indeed, he's a good kid, even too good; his attempts to help lead to disasters (of a minor, correctable sort); things will get broken. One might say that where Dennis is concerned, no target of a good deed goes unpunished. (The brief opening credits picture him as an actual whirlwind.) In the comics, the character was occasionally made to sit in the corner (the gag was his explanation of whatever put him there), but was he ever punished on television? I would have to go through 146 episodes to find out, but I suspect not. If he was, it didn't stick. TV tots in that time were generally being prepped for adulthood; their misadventures led generally, and gently, to lessons learned. But there's no point in trying to teach Dennis anything; on the page and screen, the Mitchells, who are tolerant, if often tested parents, are wise enough to know they can't win — whatever they do, there's another panel coming the next day, another episode coming the next week, and Dennis will remain the agent of chaos he was created to be. For adult readers and viewers, he's a comical scamp; to a kid, he's an ideal. In my mind, he's a little mixed up with my grade-school friend Danny Shannon, who as a blond kid with a certain bold insouciance was closer to Dennis (and to North) than I'd ever be, and alongside whom I'd read paperback collections of the cartoon, the way that the young people of the 21st century might look at their phones, side by side. There was, of course, an unavoidable sell-by date for North's Dennis. David and Ricky Nelson could age across 'The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet,' but, like Bart Simpson, Dennis Mitchell, tied to a cartoon, could not. The actor's next and last television series was 'Maya,' in 1967, a semi-sequel to a 1966 film in which he also starred. It lasted 18 episodes; I know I watched it, but I can't tell you much other than that it was shot on location in India — unusual! — featured an elephant and co-starred Sajid Khan, America's first South Asian teen idol, if you don't count Sabu. (From Tiger Beat; 'The deep look of wonder behind Sajid's shining brown eyes is increasing every day. He can't believe the love and success shown him here in America. It's happened quickly with the arms of fans everywhere reaching out, clutching Sajid and telling him he's their newest fave.' But I digress.) North, too, had his moment as a teenage pinup. What clips I could find of the show reveal him as a dark-haired stringbean, looking little like his younger self, playing new, mature attitudes. North's post-'Maya' acting career was scattered and brief. Filming 'Dennis' had been by his own later account a bad experience — the aunt who was his on-set guardian was abusive — and he became involved with former 'Donna Reed Show' star Paul Petersen's A Minor Consideration, an advocacy group for recovering child actors. As an adult he did some cartoon voice work, including playing himself on an episode of 'The Simpsons,' but didn't seriously pursue a show business career. The range of expression required from him on 'Dennis the Menace' was not wide, and subtlety was never the point of the show. But it was North who brought the character from two into four dimensions, and he gave Dennis motion and music. The sound of his 'Hellll-o, Mr. Wilson' (and 'Good old Mr. Wilson' and 'Gee, thanks, Mr. Wilson') still lives in my ear. But he radiated a brightness and, well, menace distinct from any TV child actor of his time; he owned the role, while it fit him, and as much as anyone or anything, made the series a hit. Although there have been a couple of other Dennises since, most notably Mason Gamble, opposite Walter Matthau, in a 1993 theatrical release (and less notably Justin Cooper, opposite Don Rickles, in the 1998 straight-to-video 'Dennis the Menace Strikes Again'), I have not bothered to meet them. It would feel disloyal.
