Bill Watterson (1) (1958–)

And thus we finally finish the last of the Calvin and Hobbes collection (read out of order - as one does, with a rambunctious child and his trusty pet tiger’s adventures). We’ve romped up dales and down, waggoned through many a forest, built and demolished villages of snowpeople, and driven everyone (including themselves) just a little bit mad alongside Calvin and Hobbes in their ninth collection, and enjoyed it just as heartily as any that came before it. Combining a selection of strips show more from the Sunday pages (in spectacular colour!) with the weekly shorts, we get a full range of Watterson’s talents at the height of his writing career. Following our pair of protagonists we are treated to no shortage of witty punchlines, subtle philosophy as seen through the eyes of a child, and plenty of highjinx to keep us laughing until the final pages. The exhausted Calvin that we see as we close the covers (or maybe not exhausted so much as ambushed by a ferociously wily attack tiger) is apropos, paired with his final line to Hobbes admonishing the short length of summer days; like Calvin we wish there were more hours (and more comics) to keep us going, but we’ll have to make do with what we’ve got and hope we can fit more in tomorrow - and in the next set of (re-read) strips! show less

Another (lazy) Sunday well spent with our favourite comic strip kid, Calvin, and his rascally and adorable tiger, Hobbes! Though Sundays with the pair are generally anything but lazy, as their weekends are filled with snowball fights, battles with aliens (aka mothers in disguise), and not a few philosophical musings. In this collection we are treated to a retrospective exhibition (in its print form) showcasing the Sunday special strips, which Watterson lobbied hard to expand into half page show more pieces of artwork during his tenure chronicling his unforgettable characters. While he does wonders with the short & sweet four-panel strips, it’s clear that the added space in the Sunday pages allowed his imagination to run as wild as Calvin and Hobbes and to experiment with novel illustration techniques. Hobbes dancing through unbounded panels will always be my favourite strip (what’s more iconic than the tiger’s adorable dance moves that remind us to take a moment or two of frivolity), but seeing this selection of strips in chronological order and with Watterson’s commentary gives us some wonderful additional depth to the story. As we read the final comic in the collection (also the final strip of the comic entirely) it’s hard not to tear up, as Calvin and Hobbes sled off to continue their explorations through the magical world that they’ve so lovingly shown us over the ten previous years. While the moment is definitely a touch melancholy, it’s also a reminder that joy is always out there for us to find - as long as we have our trusty tiger by our side and the faith to keep adventuring! show less

This was a weird little book… I knew better than to expect the frivolity of Watterson’s magnum opus Calvin and Hobbes, but what exactly this was I’m still not too sure. In some ways it mimics the style of a medieval Passion Play, using roughly shaped puppets to illustrate a simple allegorical tale of humanity’s fear, discovery, and then fall, but that is almost too easy an interpretation. The visual palette is starkly monochromatic, heightening the tension as humanity explores the show more Mysteries (an undisclosed group of beings or ideas) and embarks on a primal quest to unravel what exactly they are. While I quite enjoyed this thematic premise and was intrigued by the dramatic style the story set off in, as humanity became more modernized I also became less enthralled with the narrative. Once humanity knows everything, it’s only a matter of time before they lose all sense of whimsy and hope of novelty, so the story became far less enjoyable as I could clearly see they were only headed for an unhappy ending. At least by the finale the universe is left unblemished, with little but a dust-mote memory of the folly of humanity, and we can be left to wonder at what comes next. After all, the next great Mystery could be right around the edge of the galaxy, if we’d only bother to wonder. show less

The third volume sees the last few ongoing elements of Calvin and Hobbes materialize: the Tracer Bullet strips (a pastiche of hardboiled noir conventions), the ever-changing game of Calvinball, and the format-busting Sunday strips. That last innovation is preceded by a nine-month hiatus for Bill Watterson; the strips collected here jump straight from May 4, 1991 to February 2, 1992, meaning we've only just gotten out of winter and suddenly it's snowing again! But after the hiatus, Watterson show more returned with more innovative page layouts that really let him show off his accomplished draftsmanship. It's a shame Watterson has largely eschewed comics since the end of Calvin and Hobbes, as the Sunday strips largely shift to  chronicling the varied contents of Calvin's imagination, the lavish detail and dynamic layouts lead me to conclude Watterson could so something fantastic with the canvas of a true graphic novel. Some metafictional cynicism starts creeping in, too, though, with a number of strips featuring Calvin ruminating on the tension between pure art and crass commercialism.

This volume features of a couple of the best Calvin and Hobbes storylines I remember from my childhood, such as Calvin's duplicator (Calvin creates five duplicates to do his work, only to discover his duplicates have his work ethic, meaning he now has six times the laziness to contend with) and the sequel about the moralizer (Calvin's ethical duplicate horrifies Calvin when it turns out he likes Susie). None of the collected editions my family had when I was growing up must have contained 1992, however, as all of the post-hiatus storylines were unfamiliar to me. I found the one where Calvin travels in time from 6:30 to 8:30 to pick up completed homework from his future self, only to discover his 8:30 self didn't do the homework in anticipation of receiving it via time travel, causing both Calvins to travel together to 7:30 to blame that Calvin for the problem, to be an utter delight-- as is, of course, most of this book, which yields at least one laugh-out-loud moment per page, whether is be a far-fetched storyline about deranged mutant killer snow goons or a slice-of-life story about Calvin's discovery of specialized magazines for gum-chewers or a simple gag about how Calvin's mom's job prepared her to be a stay-at-home mother.

Though my favorite strip is probably the one where Calvin's dad explains to Calvin that miserable vacations are that way on purpose, and better than a luxury cruise, as they make the whole rest of your life feel like a luxury cruise. I can hear my parents offering a similar explanation. (Though I note the family isn't actually seen to go on any miserable vacations in this volume.) show less