understand what he puts her through, and Calvin retorts that her own mother used to say the same thing about her. She also usually seems sympathetic towards her son's relationship with Hobbes, and a few times has found herself speaking to Hobbes as well, though this embarrasses her. Early on in the strip, Watterson says, the parent characters were criticized by readers for being overly sarcastic and insufficiently patient, especially Calvin's father, who has several times reminded his wife that he at first wanted a dachshund instead of a son. Other relatives Uncle Max Calvin's Uncle Max appeared in a series of strips in 1988, visiting the family. Uncle Max is the older brother of Calvin's father, though he is established as single and childfree. When Calvin (who first suspected Max was a con man trying to swindle them) guesses that Max had been in jail (to explain why he hasn't met Max), his mother is outraged, while his father seems to agree with Calvin, saying "with Max, that's not a bad guess". Watterson has said Uncle Max was meant to be included in further strips, such as where the family would go to Max's home to pay him a visit; he never appeared again because Watterson felt that it was strange for Max to be unable to refer to the parents with proper names, and that the character never provided the new material for Calvin that he had hoped for. Max is drawn to resemble Calvin's dad, but with a moustache instead of glasses. The two are modeled after Watterson, who wore both. Grandparents A few strips mention Calvin's grandparents. One example, which Watterson selected for reproduction in the Tenth Anniversary Book, features Calvin telling Hobbes describing his Grandfather's complaints about comic strips: newspapers print them too small, and now they look like Xeroxed talking heads. Hobbes then tells Calvin that his grandfather takes comic strips seriously; Calvin says as a result, his mother is looking into nursing homes. Susie Derkins Susie Derkins is a classmate of Calvin who lives in his neighborhood. She is the only recurring character in the comic strip to have both a forename and a surname revealed (other characters are mentioned briefly). Named after Watterson's in-laws' family beagle, she first appeared early in the strip as a new student in Calvin's class, but in later strips speaks as a longtime neighbor. In contrast to