Customer Reviews

Calvin And Hobbes 10th Anniversary (Hd)

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The announcement last November that Bill Watterson would be retiring his comic strip Calvin and Hobbes at the end of the year should not have surprised anyone--at least, anyone who has read the recently released The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book. Like Gary Larsen's Pre-History of The Far Side, this volume provides a retrospective collection selected by the author, with notes on the origin and evolution of his creation. Both cartoonists annotated the books themselves, explaining the writing process and the business of cartooning. Larsen, though, as happy with his medium--his retirement was a factor of creative burnout rather than frustration with the limitations of the comics page of today's newspaper. That frustration with the four panel strip was the reason for Berke Breathed's early retirement, and is quite likely the reason for Watterson's as well. Watterson believes in the comic as a real art form--and in his hands it often was--but the dynamics of the business, both the physical limitations on the drawing and the way the economics is split between artist and newspaper with a syndicate go-between, restricted the full expression of his art.

The Tenth Anniversary Book is not a depressing collection, although it is quite serious in its examination of the ten years of the strip. Watterson reveled in his creation, and the work that he produced was always of the utmost quality. This collection has some of the most joyful moments of the past--Spaceman Spiff is there, as well as Stupendous Man, the Replicator, and the dreaded Babysitter. The amazing thing isn't that Watterson is retiring, but that he could spend ten years producing such work as fresh and imaginative as his debut.

While I am sad to see Waterson and Calvin and Hobbes retire, I have hope that we have not seen the last of either. The rise of the "graphic novel" and its acceptance in the United States (the form has always been popular in Europe [Tintin, Asterix] and Japan [magna too numerous to list]) offers Watterson the format that he deserves, where he can be enjoyed and appreciated as one of the most innovative sequential artists of the later 20th century.

When I bought this "Calvin and Hobbes" book I had a hard time getting into it at first. The first eighteen or nineteen pages contain more prose and philosophy than it does art, and I've always bought "Calvin and Hobbes" books for the humor. I really felt as though the philosophy and description that Bill Watterson was describing was a distraction, at first. But the more I read the more I started to get into "Calvin and Hobbes" from Watterson's perspective. Looking at the evolution of "Calvin and Hobbes" as described by Watterson, and his travails with syndicators, I have a new perspective on what it takes to create a strip like "Calvin and Hobbes."

The art and the strips are outstanding, as with the other "Calvin and Hobbes" collections, but this time we also get to see Watterson's perspectives on various characters. Some of Watterson's observations about various characters are as funny as the strips themselves. Watterson makes a rather succinct comment regarding Moe the bully. I'll leave you to read the comment, but it's hilarious.

Watterson offers comments on all the major characters along with key details about each. Moe, of course, being a simple moron bully, requires minimal description, but the other key characters have a history associated with them. Watterson provided a bit of a compliment to his wife in his description of Susie Derkins. I also agree with Watterson that I suspect that Calvin does have a mild crush on Susie. Watterson offers nearly a half a page of comments on both Calvin and Hobbes that are interesting reading.

I also enjoyed the selection of various strips over ten years of the strip, showing the evolution of the strip and the characters. It's interesting to see how the quality of the strip has improved in ten years as Watterson continually perfected the characters. Being a cartoonist is clearly much more difficult than I ever thought it was.

I will miss "Calvin and Hobbes" since Watterson has retired the strip. However, all the collections are still available, and I think they will continue to be fresh in the decades to come. The insight Watterson has provided in this book is valuable for hard core fans interested in Watterson's viewpoint on his creations. If you are uninterested in Watterson's perspective, you can always skip over it and read the strips! I highly recommend this book for all "Calvin and Hobbes" fans.

As a fan of Calvin and Hobbes, I put off getting this book because I thought it was merely a best of collection I didn't need since I had all the others. Boy was I wrong! This book is a wonderful insight into the mind behind my favorite strip of all time.

Bill Watterson spends the first part of the book talking about everything from character names and personalities to his fights to keep his characters from being over commercialized. While I wish there were more products available, I do respect him for sticking to his principles on this. He also talks about the format of the Sunday strips.

The rest of the book is a collection of strips, starting with the very first. What is interesting here is Mr. Watterson's commentary. Whether it's the idea behind or an amusing story that happened because of a strip, it's all very entertaining. It also brings out some of the themes talked about it the strip. He also discusses the ideas behind such staples as the wagon, Calvin's box, and Spaceman Spiff.

I truly miss this wonderful strip because of its creativity and insights into our American culture. This book shows the behinds the scene story in an entertaining and informative way.

Bill Watterson is not your typical cartoonist. He did not set out to create an empire from his comic. He merely set out to create an art in a dying format. He is a true comic fan whose love for it is expressed in this book. Calvin and Hobbes is not your typical comic. You don't always see the "one-liner" jokes nor the same gag done ad nauseam. There are unique and creative story lines. The characters don't have paper-thin and ever-changing personalities.

In the book, Bill Watterson writes an excellent narrative about the history of Calvin and Hobbes. The best part I believe is when he starts talking about his struggle with his syndicate over merchandising Calvin and Hobbes. I grew a lot of respect for Bill Watterson and his art after reading it. You realize how serious he is about it. You also discover why he took those long sabbaticals.

You also find out a lot about the comic itself. There are many strips in the book that Bill Watterson makes personal comments about that enlightens the reader. You learn about how each character from Calvin to his Parents to his teacher to his babysitter was created and developed.

Ever since Bill Watterson ended Calvin and Hobbes there has been a hole in the comics that may never be filled. Though this book you relive the laughs, wagon rides, snow men, maulings, and poems through the eyes of their creator. This is quite a interesting and profound read for any Calvin and Hobbes fan and even and fan of comics in general.

This book is a wonderful insight into how Bill Watterson's mind works. I for one feel grateful for the trend of comic artists doing a book to tell us readers about the nuts and bolts of their strips.

Watterson shows us his influences, gives us the inside scoop on his troubles with the syndicate and his take on artistic integrity. We learn about the idiosyncracies of Watterson's mind and how they shaped the growth and development of "Calvin and Hobbes". I learned a great deal about the history of comics as a whole, as well as many of the reasons for their decline and loss of space in recent years. Plus, the book contains many of the best strips and story sequences from the annals of Calvin and Hobbes.

I hoped Watterson would maybe do a Calvin and Hobbes comic book on his own terms after retiring from the daily grind; he could remake comic books in an image more to his liking. Sadly, I think the effort wore him out. C&H is sorely missed, there are only a handful of strips out there worth anything, and of those none (in my opinion) come CLOSE to equalling Calvin and Hobbes, even in it's early stages. I think the Tenth Anniversary Book reveals that Watterson is a very intelligent and competent artist, whose absence from the newspaper leave all of us a little emptier. Now with the loss of Charles Schulz, I fear the comics will slide further into banality and the same jokes done the same way by the same cartoonists, many of whom blatantly (wittingly or not) rip off Watterson, Breathen, Kelly and other giants of the medium.

Here's to originality. Here's to Calvin and Hobbes.

This book is great like all the other Calvin and Hobbes collections. This one, however, offers the unique feature of commentary written by Bill Watterson himself. Bill has selected some of his favorite, or important landmark, strips and some of his least favorites. He also gives an in depth study of each character (Calvin, Hobbes, Calvin's parents, Susie, Rosalyn, Miss Wormwood and Moe). He gives brief explainations of the importance of Calvin's wagon, Calvins incredible use of corrugated cardboard boxes, Spaceman Spiff and the "fantasy" strips. (Dinosaurs, Tracer Bullet, Stupendous Man ect.) Now Spaceman Spiff is a fantasy, but I think Bill thought he was especially important so Spiff is granted his own page. Bill also describes the five years where he fought tirelessly to save Calvin and Hobbes from being licensed. I honor him for his efforts, because, like he says in the book, when you have the characters appearing on coffee mugs saying things that aren't in the cartoonist's control, the character's personality can be thwarted and it ruins the actual strip. He has a section explaining the three strips that influenced him (read to find out what they are), the Sunday strips and how he feels about them, and a part on the process of creating a cartoon. At the end of the book, he has a page about comics in general. Another good thing about this book is that due to the timing of Attack of the Deranged, Mutant, Killer, Monster Snow Goons, the Sunday strips featured in that book didn't make it into a treasury collection so none of the Sundays are in reprinted in color, except for some in this book. Some strips may be even funnier after you read this, because you know where the iidea for it came from. I have to say now that if you consider yourself a fan of Calvin and Hobbes and you do not own this book, you need to seriously re-examine the title you have given youself

When I think of the five top cartoonists in the history of cartoons, the names and the variety always intrigue me. Names like Walt Disney, Matt Groening, and even Charles Schultz are still on the tip of tongues all over the world, and each of them had a different style that they popularized. Each of them has been very influential to the cartooning business as well. The two other names aren't Hanna-Barbera (though they are right on the cusp of making the top five), but two cartoonists who both are retired, but made their names known with the comic strip format in the newspapers: Gary Larson and Bill Watterson. This book is a reflection by Bill Watterson, the genius of the hit comic strip "Calvin and Hobbes." C & H has been out of newspapers now for almost 10 years, but this book is a confession by Watterson on the first 10 years of creating "Calvin and Hobbes," a strip he ultimately retired after 11 years of creating.

The topics that are discussed by Watterson are taken very seriously and are talked about almost in a bitter, negative tone. His rants on the comic strip industry become tedious after a while, and he seems to be a cynical person on this topic. However, his arguments of artistic control and freedom vs. the demands and limitations set by syndicates make a good point/counterpoint argument to augment the balance of philosophy and prose vs. plain ol' whining. What you sense with Watterson while reading these passages is his evolution from a straight up cartoonist to more of an artist who wanted no limitations on getting his artistic message across (especially while creating his Sunday strips). You can sense a perfectionist inside of Watterson, and looking at the early strips cartoony look and simple gags to the later strips sophistication in storylines and art, it is easy to agree with Watterson that the early strips look "weird". It is also easy to see that Watterson fell more and more in love with the Sunday strip format. Looking at later daily strips, you sense he rushed through these to spend time on the Sunday strips, which are lush, lavish, and very colorful in their new format. Wattersons views of the cartoon business can come across as preachy and overbearing, but he provides enough evidence to balance out any bias on his part.

The book also takes on the issues of licensing, sabbaticals, and the process of creating a strip. I agree 100% with Wattersons stance on licensing, and his stance concludes to me that he is a man of integrity. I have grown so sick of strips like "Garfield" and "Dilbert" because of how overexposed they are, and these strips show the cartoon as more of a marketing tool than a piece of artistic pride by the cartoonist themself. Watterson put up a fight to stop the licensing of his product, and while burning some bridges and passing up millions of dollars, he came out successful. These fights, however, exhausted Watterson, which is why he took a sabbatical to recover. He makes mention of how syndicates now give 4 months off every year to the cartoonist, and he thinks these are more logical than his nine month vacation.

The part of the book I enjoyed the most was his description of characters and how he chose to write certain strips. The descriptions are pretty hilarious (especially Moe and Miss Wormwood) and even complimentary(Susie as a reflection of the type of girl he is attracted to, aka his wife). I thought that his descriptions are right on target, and is probably what people think when they read the strips. The background in his creation of certain strips show Watterson as humorous, cynical, honest, random, caring, thoughtful, and very creative. You will not only be laughing at the strips he chose, but by the descriptions he gives about the creation of the strip as well.

"Calvin and Hobbes" is thoroughly a missing part of the newspaper today. The comics page has not been the same since Watterson hung up the paintbrush about 10 years ago. While standard, pedestrian strips keep churning along ("Garfield", "Dennis the Menace", etc.), strips that pushed the envelope like this, "Peanuts", and "Far Side" are few and far between today. Thank God for book collections. If you are a fan of "Calvin and Hobbes", or interested in what they are all about, read this book today to see the genius of the man behind it all, Mr. Bill Watterson.

For 10 years (November 1985-January 1996), Bill Watterson has brought laughter to many reading the newspaper with his cartoon Calvin and Hobbes.

Calvin (whom Watterson named after the theologian John Calvin) is a young kid with lots of imagination and attitude! His only friend in the world is his stuffed tiger Hobbes who comes to life with Calvin's imagination (Watterson named Hobbes after the Engish philosopher Thomas Hobbes).

In this anthology, Watterson explains how he came up with the inspiration of many of his cartoons. He also talks about some of the other characters like his cynical but long-suffering parents, his teacher Miss Wormwood, Suzie Derkins, who Calvin loves to terrorize, the dumb bully Moe, and Rosalyn, his sometime babysitter who doesn't tolerate much from the little monster!

Some of Calvin's adventures include transmogrifying himself into a tiger, duplicating himself (once with a terror just like himself and again as a good, well-behaved carbon copy of himself), turning into Stupendous Man, making snow-goons in the winter, and going on boring camping trips in the summer (which only Calvin's daddy enjoys- "This is fun- it builds character!").

If you were a fan of Calvin and Hobbes when it appeared in the newspaper, you'll want this collection!

Bill Watterson captures what being a six-year-old boy is about - and what being around one is like if you're a parent, a teacher, or a well-behaved six-year-old girl. Calvin is both lovable and exasperating. The cartoons capture the boredom of school, the fun of making believe you're a pirate or a spaceman or an adventurer, the frustration that the most loving of parents experience. Mostly, though, the cartoons are some of the funniest that you'll ever read or see; both the drawing and the dialogue are great.

Is there anyone who doesn't love these two screwball characters? The idea behind the original strip (a little boy with a stuffed tiger that only talks to him) is original, at least as far as I know, and remarkably clever. Watterson carried it off for a good long while, until the pressures of writing made things so unfun to him he hung up his pen. I notice that he's stayed retired, so I would assume he took his loot and scooted.

This collection contains some of the most outrageous of the cartoons, but it also has a good deal of commentary by Watterson himself. He tells you what basis the characters have in reality, from Calvin's parents to Miss Wormwood and Susie Derkins. He also discusses the various trials and tribulations he went through as a cartoonist producing the strip for a syndicate, and the evils of said syndicates as far as he's concerned. There's a lot that hints at why he quit. He also includes explanations of what Calvin's talking about, or alternatively, what the strip is supposed to be saying. Lastly, he talks about characters he has removed from the strip, or things he did that he didn't think worked. I loved this book, and of course wish he would produce more stuff now that he's retired from the pressures of doing it day to day.