The Complete Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson

From the Publisher

Calvin and Hobbes is unquestionably one of the most popular comic strips of all time. The imaginative world of a boy and his real-only-to-him tiger was first syndicated in 1985 and appeared in more than 2,400 newspapers when Bill Watterson retired on January 1, 1996. More than 30 million of the 17 Calvin and Hobbes books (all published by Andrews McMeel) have been sold. And now, we're pleased to announce that the entire body of Calvin and Hobbes cartoons will be published in a truly noteworthy tribute to this singular cartoon. Composed of three hardcover, four-color volumes in a sturdy slipcase, this edition will include all Calvin and Hobbes cartoons that ever appeared in syndication. This is the treasure that all Calvin and Hobbes fans will seek.

Publishers Weekly

By the 1980s the once glorious newspaper comics section had become a wasteland, ravaged by shrinking space, editorial timidity and other ills. The real excitement in my medium had moved to the fertile margins of the alternative press. Bill Watterson, as uninterested in underground comix as I was in the mass media's bland concoctions, marched directly into the wasteland and made the comatose syndicated strip form kick up its heels and dance.From 1985 until Watterson abandoned it at the height of its popularity 10 years later, Calvin and Hobbes echoed the classic strips the artist most admired. Stirring the richly conceived characters and efficient drawing of Peanuts with the visual virtuosity and linguistic playfulness of Pogo and Krazy Kat, he applied his intelligence and supple cartoon skills to come up with a creation beloved by the millions who still mourn its passing. Now, a decade after his demise, six-year-old Calvin has a fitting monument-a lavishly produced three-volume boxed collection of all the strips, which weighs as much as a tombstone. Following in the wake of Gary Larson's The Complete Far Side, and with a 250,000-copy "limited edition" first printing, the publisher realistically predicts that this book will be "the heaviest and most expensive book ever to hit the New York Times best seller list." While not as exquisitely wrought as Walt and Skeezix, the recently launched reprinting of Frank King's epic run of Gasoline Alley, or as intimate and dignified as Fantagraphics' ongoing republication of all 50 years of Peanuts, this luxurious set is dressed for success and deserves an honored spot on the happily expanding shelves of strip reprints.The Complete Calvin and Hobbes offers two intertwined narratives. One details the friendship between Calvin-the egotistical, feverishly imaginative, wised-up young tyke with the vocabulary of a Yale lit major-and his animal familiar, Hobbes. Hobbes is seen by Calvin's parents as a nondescript plush toy and by Calvin and the reader as a pouncing and amiable "real" tiger-Calvin's slightly-more-sensible better half. The crosscutting between private and shared reality gives the strip its vitality.The autobiographical introduction by the notoriously reclusive Watterson kicks off another tale about the collision of private and shared realities: the story of an ornery artist's battle to explore his craft within the claustrophobic confines of a few inches of newsprint space. The beleaguered Watterson fights the strictures of brutal daily deadlines, skirmishes with editors to win more space for his often graceful Sunday pages, slugs it out with his syndicate to keep his creation from being reduced to a stuffed doll. The later strips begin to dwell obsessively on the horrors of our dumbed-down commodity culture, and there's something poignant about the artist's hopeless struggle to work within the confines of mass culture while simultaneously critiquing it. These books offer a testament to Watterson's dedication and to the medium's ability to keep reinventing itself against all odds. (Oct.)Art Spiegelman is the Pulitzer Prize winning author of Maus and In the Shadow of No Towers. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

From 1985 to 1995, the lovingly remembered, riotously funny adventures of six-year-old hellion Calvin and his great friend Hobbes the tiger kept newspaper readers laughing uproariously (and sometimes thinking, or smiling warmly). This wonderfully lavish three-book hardcover set collects the strip's entire run. From the very beginning, Watterson showed incredible skills as a cartoonist and humorist. Calvin is completely believable as a genuine little boy: irrepressible, argumentative, curious, naive, messy, and sometimes sweet in spite of himself. His marvelously imaginative fantasies of monsters, dinosaurs, spaceships, and heroes, superimposed over the real world, provide endless story ideas that never become tired through repetition. The somewhat more mature but still playful Hobbes, who appears to everyone but Calvin as a stuffed animal, is immensely endearing. This set presents the strips in a large size, with Sunday episodes in full color, and includes all the bonus features from the strip's original paperback collections plus a new introduction by Watterson. Any library owning all of those earlier collections will have every strip here, but this more durable presentation is highly recommended. This is one of the all-time great comic strips, absolutely essential for every library. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

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