One of the constant story arcs that repeat over and over again throughout Calvin and Hobbes is the fact that Calvin hates school. He hates going to school, he hates being in school, and he hates anything to do with school. If he sees a chance to get away from school, he will take it, no matter the consequences.
Calvin's hatred of school has led to some seriously funny comics about the place and his experiences within. Some show his struggles to survive, while others show his creativity and imagination as he deals with everything within the building in his own, hilarious way.
Class Picture Day
Calvin's goal of causing chaos and pandemonium can culminate in many different ways, even in instances of simply trying to make his hair look crazy for class picture day.
Despite his mom's best efforts, Calvin manages to make his hair look crazy for the picture during this arc, and also reveals that he has a face painted on his belly. While readers don't get to see the final picture, they can tell from Hobbes' reaction to the picture that it's completely chaotic and hilarious and shows that Calvin can have some fun with the school if he gets to do what he wants.
School Play
Even though a long-running gag in Calvin and Hobbes is Calvin's attempts to ruin school, there are some strips in which things are ruined despite Calvin's best efforts to participate.
Such was the case in this arc where Calvin was given a role in the school play. Right before he was to go on, he tries to use the bathroom but gets stuck in his onion costume. The play is stopped as they try to find Calvin, and the whole thing is ultimately ruined. The hilarity of this strip is even greater due to Calvin not actually wanting the play to be ruined, and the play still being ruined unintentionally by him all the same.
Periscope
Susie is one of Calvin's biggest and best enemies, leading to several conflicts between them, especially in school. Often, Calvin tries to cheat on schoolwork using her through various means.
While many times he just gets wrong answers from her, he sometimes uses various means to get the answers he wants. In this strip, Calvin somehow smuggles a periscope to school and uses it to look at Susie's paper. It's a hilarious moment that's completely unexpected and leaves questions as to how exactly Calvin got the periscope into school without anyone noticing.
Insect Collection
Calvin slacking on assignments is a common sight to see in Calvin and Hobbes, but his failure in this arc snowballs into him getting into more and more trouble.
It all starts when he fails to get his insect collection on time. When he tries to get Susie to help him, he gets her in trouble and gets her sent to the principal's office. Unfortunately for him, Susie tells on him, getting him into even more trouble. It's a long, hilarious arc, compounded by Calvin's attempts to do a month's worth of work in one morning and Susie's fears of getting in trouble with the principal.
Bat Report
Calvin's research skills are not the best, as evidenced in this hilarious arc when he is forced to do a report on bats.
Towards the start of the arc, Calvin decides that bats are bugs without any sort of research on the subject. It's a belief he continues throughout the arc, even up until the time of the report. Seeing Calvin's entire class cream out that bats weren't bugs is hysterical, especially when Calvin loses it at the end. Ultimately, however, Calvin gets a terrible grade on the report and decides to bury the evidence - literally.
Tracer Bullet
Many of Calvin and Hobbes' weirdest comics involve Calvin's many alter egos. One particular alter ego made an appearance while Calvin was at school - the private eye, Tracer Bullet.
Throughout this arc, readers are treated to a hilarious noir experience as Calvin tries to solve a math problem using Tracer Bullet, who goes on a dark adventure to find the answer. The noir themes throughout are dead on and simply add to the humor, which gets even more when Calvin, in true fashion, winds up with an incredibly wrong answer at the very end of the arc.
Ditching School
It doesn't take much for Calvin's mom to freak out over Calvin's antics, especially when it comes to him doing something really bad such as ditching school.
With the hilarious backdrop of Spaceman Spiff driving the story, Calvin manages to escape school and make it back home. But the humor gets even more intense when he stupidly decides to just walk in the front door, knowing full well that Mom is home. It's a mistake that Calvin shouldn't have made, and it winds up costing him with even more schoolwork.
State Of Denial
Calvin's daydreams during class often lead to him not being able to give any answers when asked by Miss Wormwood, leading to him having to give a snarky response.
Sometimes the snarky response works. In this strop, Calvin is questioned by Miss Wormwood about what state he lives in, to which Calvin answers, "Denial." It's a hysterical response that even Miss Wormwood can't argue against. Even funnier is that it's a joke about the comic itself. The state in which Calvin lives in is never revealed, so poking fun at that concept here just adds to the humor of it all.
Stupendous Man
Calvin will do anything to try to tests, including dres as Stupendous Man. This has led to a funny arc in which he tries to use Stupendous Man to do just that.
Miss Wormwood's frustration with Calvin in this arc is completely evident, as she once again refers to her desire to retire to not deal with Calvin's craziness anymore. Calvin's exploits as Stupendous Man here are also hilarious, especially when he tries to claim that he wasn't the masked hero, even though everyone can see that it was him the entire time.
Loopholes
Calvin seems to be challenged a lot by his schoolwork, which seems severely advanced at times for 6-year-olds. But sometimes, the wording of the questions allows Calvin to improvise with his answers.
In this strip, Calvin must define Newton's First Law in his own words. Seeing this, he decides to write gibberish, as it's a loophole around answering the question. After all, it's still technically his own words. The obvious loophole here is hilarious to see him exploit, although it's hard to imagine Miss Wormwood ever accepting such an answer, even if it's a clever workaround to the question like this answer is.
