Calvin's school runs a contest, where the students make traffic safety posters, and the winner gets five dollars. Calvin and Hobbes create a poster with a disturbing warning and gore effects, which Calvin believes is a shoo-in to win.
Tropes
- Circling Birdies: Invoked. As Hobbes draws the art for Calvin's poster, he feels that it's important to show depth of feeling, so he draws stars to represent human pain and suffering.
- Daydream Surprise: Calvin enters a traffic safety poster contest, and is certain that his poster, "Be Careful Or Be Roadkill", is a shoo-in. One strip begins with several newspaper headlines about Calvin winning the contest and praising him for his greatness. The last panel then has Susie excitedly going up to Calvin, telling him that her poster won.
- Deer in the Headlights: Calvin is making a traffic safety poster for a school contest. When he asks Hobbes for advice on the slogan, Hobbes suggests, "Don't look into car headlights and freeze, because you'll either get run over or shot!" Calvin points out that doesn't happen to most people, and Hobbes responds that there's more to this world than people.
- Ignored Aesop: After losing the poster contest, both Hobbes and Dad tell Calvin that winning isn't that important. Calvin, of course, isn't having any of it.
- Insult Backfire: Calvin thanks Susie when she says his poster is gross.
- Rhymes on a Dime: The slogan Calvin's mom suggests goes "Before you cross, look each way, and you'll get home safe each day." Hobbes comments that it's pretty catchy, but Calvin prefers his own slogan.
- Scare 'Em Straight: Calvin's poster goes for this approach, using the slogan "Be careful or be roadkill" and using spaghetti sauce to simulate the effects of gore.
- Slogans: Calvin gets suggestions for a few different ones for his poster from his parents and Hobbes, before ultimately deciding on his own, "Be careful or be roadkill".
- Small Name, Big Ego: Calvin thinks the poster contest is a much bigger deal than it actually is, believing that winning it will propel him to fame and stardom.
- Sore Loser: When the traffic safety poster Calvin designed for a school contest (which everyone but him knew would lose, given that it was a gory picture with the slogan "Be Careful or be Roadkill") loses to Susie, he claims the contest was rigged. He demands that his dad call the school and have fraud declared.
- Take Our Word for It: Calvin's poster is never shown in full, but everyone who sees it agrees that it's gross. We don't even see the students' reactions when Calvin presents it in class.Calvin: I can see you're all just sick about your chances of winning.
