Some strips keep the story going for a few pages, as in the epic and milk-snortingly funny story of a snake found in the boys’ bathroom. However, the kids wander freely across the little fishing village, limited only by their imaginations (and their fears), and summer is a time of unlimited fun with no resource to video games, television, or cellphones but plenty of trips to the local comics store, ice cream, and Wallace’s grand pinball ambitions at the local arcade. The setting is contemporary enough for them to have a teacher with dark skin, the girls wearing pants and playing with the boys, and the occasional mention of electronics. Set in the near past in the quirky town of Snug Harbor, Wallace and his friends, the square-headed and anxious friend Spud and new girl Amelia, explore the town, the ocean, and experience all the fun and nostalgia of a screen-free childhood in their little fishing village.

While there can be no real successor to the humor, warmth, and wry philosophy of Calvin and Hobbes, Will Henry comes in a close second with his quirky comic strip, Wallace the Brave.

Wallace the brave spud