[Richard Kimball]

Surely I don't jest. I'm not saying he's a carbon copy, but every so often there is something original, and creates a new genre. Snoopy created a genre. Garfield was an offshoot of Snoopy, and Hobbes was also.

[Interesting Times]

You're sure Hobbes derived from the Snoopy / Garfield line, and not, say, the Pogo / Mr. Peabody branch, right?

Other than the coincidence of both being cartoon animals, it's difficult to see much similarity between Garfield and Hobbes. Their styles, humor and use of language are quite different, just for starters. Snoopy might be a bit closer, but to baldly assert that Hobbes is derivitive of Snoopy (and by way of Garfield, no less) is just silly.

I do grant you that they each have fur.

[L.N. Smithee]

Garfield was an offshoot of Snoopy, and Hobbes was also.

I have to disagree with that on a minor point. In the beginning, Garfield was strictly a quadruped. In an interview on KSFO with WND columnist Barbara Simpson, Jim Davis said that it was none other than Charles Schulz who convinced him to expand Garfield's horizons by having him walk upright like Snoopy does.

If you can, check out the very, very early Peanuts strips, when the main characters were Charlie Brown, Shermy, Patty (not Peppermint Patty) and Lucy (Linus and Schroeder were born into the strip later). Snoopy was strictly a dog, with no vivid imagination causing him to fantasize about being a World War I pilot or an astronaut.

As for Calvin & Hobbes: reading an interview with Bill Watterson is a maddening experience. He took the strip seriously, which is good, but he intellectualized the characters in his own mind to an extent that it makes you wonder if he is sane.