The Imagination Game: Calvinball on Paper

Bill Watterson, probably the best ever.

This is the kind of game that sucks to play with boring people, and is absolutely a blast to play with interesting, creative people.  You’ll find out pretty quickly which of your friends is which.  It goes like this:

1. Get a sheet of blank paper, a writing utensil and at least one other person.
2. Draw one thing.
3. The next person draws one thing.
4. The next person draws one thing.
5. And so on. 

“One thing” is really whatever you want it to be.  One penguin.  One herd of penguins.  One iceberg full of penguins.  If you’re really creative you could draw something besides a penguin.  Like a walrus.  The idea is to build a world that each of your objects or characters are interacting with.

I draw a mug of steaming liquid, and you draw a penguin relaxing in my mug, which is now a mug-shaped mini-hot tub for flightless waterfowl, apparently.  So I draw a bonfire under the mug and turn it into apathetic penguin soup.  You draw an ice block strapped to the penguin’s head.  I draw the mug in the tiny arms of a tyrannosaurus, heating his mug of penguin tea.  It’s quite the snowball effect.

As I said before, you find out pretty quickly which among your friends have a stunning lack of creativity.  Maybe “lack of creativity” isn’t correct; it's their fear of being creative.  Because really, creativity is just another name for being weird.

This game is amazing for road trips and adolescents, because kids aren’t afraid to draw.  Which brings me to my next post: People Get Weird About Art.