Some fantastic person (specifically, Nite4awk, AKA freelance photographer Michael S. Den Beste) took illustrations from Calvin and Hobbes and placed the characters into some gorgeous real-life photographs.

These are simply too stupendously awesome not to share.

As I was admiring these things, I couldn’t help but think of ways that some of them could be improved even further, and I couldn’t resist throwing them into Photoshop and sprucing them up a little. The following were composed by Den Beste, with a few small embellishments added by myself. Full credit for these belongs to him (and of course to Bill Watterson for drawing the comic in the first place).

Added color to the comic panels and shadows to the snowmen.

Added fire and smoke in Giant Calvin’s wake.

Faded the smoke wafting away from the cigarette.

Added reflections in the water for the cartoons.

You can see all of Nite4awk’s Calvin and Hobbes images in this gallery, including a few others I didn’t post here. He also has a blog where he’ll hopefully be posting more of these in the future.

What is it about a snowfall that makes the world so silent?

It’s because every living thing that might otherwise be making noise is hunkered down until the air is clear again. The birds are all silent. Can it really just be the absence of their songs that makes such an eerie hush?

The air pump in my old fish tank was obnoxiously loud, but when it ran every second of every day, its buzzing was nothing – until it was turned off, and the silence was deafening.