Batman has the Joker, Superman has Lex Luthor, Captain America has the Red Skull, and for six-year-old Calvin, his avowed arch-nemesis is Rosalyn, the diabolical babysitter who makes him go to bed at 6:30. In Bill Watterson’s comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, there weren’t many recurring characters beyond Calvin, his tiger Hobbes, and Calvin’s parents, but there were a few others in Calvin’s orbit. And while Calvin was often at odds with his neighbor Susie, that was nothing compared to his rivalry with Rosalyn the babysitter, a character deserving of a bit more appreciation and whose best-ever quote in the series ranks among the funniest stuff in the history of Calvin and Hobbes.
Rosalyn was first introduced in May, 1986 with a a weekday panel on Thursday May 15, and a storyline that continued on through Friday and Saturday. Rosalyn was also featured in that Sunday’s longer, color comic strip and it appears as though she’s babysitting Calvin for the first time, whereas she seems to already know him in the weekday comics from the preceding days. Most likely, the Sunday strip was written first, as Sunday comics had to be prepared weeks before the daily ones did.
In the earliest comic strips with Rosalyn, she’s a much harsher character. In that first three-day weekday storyline, Rosalyn locks Calvin in the basement for hours, not wanting to put up with his nonsense. Meanwhile, Calvin was a more passive victim of Rosalyn’s cruelty.
Eventually, the dynamic would switch where Calvin would constantly misbehave and torture Rosalyn, while Rosalyn was more of a victim. In this layer dynamic, her harshness really doesn’t extend beyond her putting Calvin to bed at the extra-early time of 6:30. Well, I can speculate that Calvin is just a heck of a lot funnier when he is horrible to someone that doesn't really seem to deserve it.
But while their comedy dynamic would evolve, the fact that Rosalyn’s first weekday appearance lasted for three days straight points to something that would become essential to her future appearances. Rosalyn was almost always featured in stories that spanned multiple days. Ever since the beginning of Calvin and Hobbes, Watterson alternated between standalone jokes and multi-day storylines.
Those longer storylines allowed Watterson to illustrate his prowess as a longer-form storyteller, and Calvin’s rivalry with Rosalyn made for some great stories. The best multi-day babysitter story in Calvin and Hobbes is probably the time Calvin managed to trick Rosalyn by locking her out of the house. Having been sent to bed at an early time, Calvin gets up and tells Rosalyn he heard something outside.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
