Calvin and Hobbes embodied the voice of the lonely child

C&H is about imagination, not loneliness.

Imagination is an intrinsic and essential part of the human experience, especially in childhood, and to call it a 'coping mechanism' is completely missing the point.

Bill Watterson's genius was showing that there's a magic world in all of us; not that the world outside was not oppressive or unpleasant.

I cannot tell you how meaningful the 3rd "KAZAM!" comic was for me as a child. It isn't even loneliness due to isolation from other humans, it is eternal isolation from the worlds in your imagination and the people you want to meet there. They never have a life of their own outside your mind, it is a profound kind of separation that no amount of companionship can remedy, you can be distracted for a moment, or even a lifetime, but those worlds and all their potential beauty and wonder are always there waiting. Maybe VR will someday be good enough to synthesize those worlds and give expression to imaginations like Calvin's.

Like all great art, Calvin and Hobbes was different things to different people.

For me, Calvin and Hobbes ran throughout most of my childhood and contributed as much to my growing up as anything else outside my own family. I saw Calvin as a fellow outsider, but not exactly lonely, because his imagination was his constant companion.

Calvin: God put me on this earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I am so far behind that I will never die.

As a child, I would pour over Calvin and Hobbes for hours. In a world full of people that I could never relate to, I felt like I could relate to those comics.

I found the "preachy" bootleg strip referred to in the first paragraph to be rather poignant and wonderful.