Product Description

New York Times best-seller!

Watterson's imaginative approach to his material and his inventive graphics have made Calvin and Hobbes one of the few universally admired by other cartoonists." --Charles Solomon, Los Angeles Times Book Review

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. The entire body of Calvin and Hobbes cartoons published in a truly noteworthy tribute to this singular cartoon in The Complete Calvin and Hobbes. Composed of three hardcover, four-color volumes in a sturdy slipcase, this edition includes all Calvin and Hobbes cartoons that ever appeared in syndication. This is the treasure that all Calvin and Hobbes fans seek.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #490 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-04
• Released on: 2005-10-04
• Format: Box set
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 1440 pages

Amazon.com Review
An Excerpt from Bill Watterson's Introduction:

"I’ve loved comic strips as long as I can remember. As a kid, I knew I wanted to be either a cartoonist or an astronaut. The latter was never much of a possibility, as I don’t even like riding in elevators. I kept my options open until seventh grade, but when I stopped understanding math and science, my choice was made. There is great personal satisfaction in attending to detail and quality, and I remain very proud of the standards the strip met day after day. I also liked the responsibility of knowing that, succeed or fail, it was all my own doing. This approach kept the strip very honest and personal--everything having to do with Calvin and Hobbes expressed my own ideas, my own values, my own way. I wrote every word, drew every line, and painted every color. It’s a rare gift to find such fulfilling work and I tried to show my appreciation by giving the strip everything I had to offer."

Exclusive Images from the New Collection More Calvin and Hobbes Books

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From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. [Signature]Reviewed by Art SpiegelmanBy 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.
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About the Author
Bill Watterson is the creator of Calvin and Hobbes, one of the most popular and well-regarded cartoon strips of the twentieth century. Calvin and Hobbes appeared in newspapers from November 1985 until Watterson's retirement in 1996.

Customer Reviews

Horrible binding
The cover of volume 3 completely fell apart from the binding. Appalling work. I am trying to get something done about it but I have owned it for about a yeat ( although it has been treated with the utmost care) so it is doubtful anything can be done. Encourage people not purchase this book until Mcneel start to produce quality work.

It's What's Inside That Counts
The Complete Calvin and Hobbes is a great purchase. This massive set contains every C&H strip, with good printing quality, and the volumes are well-bound and sturdy. The intro written by Bill Watterson is an enjoyable read, and the strip is, of course, priceless. There's nothing like C&H, and there never will be again.

There are some glaring flaws, though, in both the printing and in the packaging. First, the strips aren't arranged in strictly chronological order. There are odd leaps and turn backs, mostly because the publisher elected to group Sunday strips. If the entire run of Calvin and Hobbes evened out to six weeklies and a Sunday strip, this would make some sense, but there are not always Sunday strips to end a week, and so sets of weeklies still end up split on opposite sides of the same piece of paper. It should have been in chronological order from start to finish.

The other complaint is that the covers and the box are made of a cheap material. It looks nice until it touches something, and then permanent marks are left. Also, the two pictures on the outside of the slipcase are pieces of paper that have been glued on. There's no reason those couldn't have been printed on. It would look nicer and last longer.

Still, a brilliant collection of a brilliant strip well worth your money.

NOT 1 DENT!!!!
I just received them today, I had to let you guys know that there was nothing wrong with product. No dents, scratch, etc... I didn't open the actually books, because it is a gift to someone else. I was so nervous that I would get them, and the package would be damage, but nothing!!!