Customer Reviews

Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat: A Calvin and Hobbes Collection

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Fans of Calvin & Hobbes who used to read the newspaper strip in the 80s and 90s will find great pleasure in reading this collection of C&H comics. These witty comics about the 6-year old Calvin and his stuffed tiger Hobbes, named after the famous philosophers, will amuse people of all ages. The perceptiveness and humor of Watterson deserve the highest of cartoon awards, while his artistic creations exude hilarity. This cartoon is perhaps one of the most piercing yet funny critiques of modern society.

This book has more encounters with Mrs. Wormwood, when Stupendous Man saves the day. More snowman fun and more snowballs against Susie. Students in particular will like this book since it has many creative ideas for dealing with homework.

Note that there are two series of C&H collections: individual wide-format albums, each covering an entire year of strips (will call it "regular"), and the vertical aspect ratio "treasury series" which covers selected comics from two regular C&H books. Note that C&H ran for a year in newspapers, so there's 10 regular books and 5 treasury books. Though the cartoons are slightly smaller in the treasury collection, each treasury book is far thicker and contains more strips than a regular book, and is furthermore less expensive, so treasury books are a real bargain. "Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat" belongs to the regular series and was published in 1994.

Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes seems to be one of the last of the great newspaper strip panel comics. It's hilarious while also being insightful, poignant, and bitingly satirical. As most readers know, since Watterson has written it elsewhere, Calvin is named after John Calvin "a sixteenth century theologian who beleived in predestination". Hobbes also has a famous historical namesake in Thomas Hobbes, the seventeeth century author of "Leviathan" whose most famous saying is that life in a state of nature would be "Nasty, brutish, and short". From such a foundation, readers can expect more than a wacky strip full of slapstick, puns and sitcom-type pet or baby humor. There is much more, because Calvin and Hobbes, like all of the great comic strips, has depth. Reading just a handful of strips reveals this.

This collection from 1994 includes a great satire on conceptual art (Calvin tries to sell Hobbes a landscape in a Sunday strip); a great satire on corporate philosophy (Calvin ends up telling his mother that he needs to be subsidized); Hobbes sends Calvin anonymous insults in the mail ("Most people have secret admirers, you have a secret detractor"); "Stupendous Man" invades Calvin's class to take an exam in Calvin's place (he still flunks); one of the best is a single panel strip in which Calvin asks his parents "What assurance do I have that your parenting isn't screwing me up?"; There are also loads of Watterson's great Sunday strips. Watterson is definitely one of the last cartoonist artists that fully appreciated the boundaries (or lack of them) of the color Sunday strip. Calvin's imagined dinosaurs, aliens, parodies of "Judge Parker" type strips, and multicolor tiger battles are amazing works of cartoon art. It's difficult to find anything that even comes close on today's incredibly shrinking Sunday comics page.

Bill Watterson remains heavily elusive. What has he been doing since he voluntarily quit Calvin and Hobbes? Internet searches (at least cursory ones) don't elucidate much (one mentions that he is an intensely private individual - no doubt). Hopefully he's planning another amazing strip. Whether we hear from him again or not, in the end, we can be happy that he took up cartoonist's pen and graced the newspapers with at least one more great strip.

This collection has a few of my favorites in it (especially the girls/bugs analogy - priceless!) Great for any age - I read C&H starting around age 7 and I still read it today! I enjoy it just as much, though I see it from a unique perspective now. Every kid should grow up with this.

I think that this is the funniest collection yet by Bill Waterson of his world famous "Calvin and Hobbes".
This is the book that I think has the funniest stupendous man comics when Calvin turns into stupendous man, takes a test, and still flunks!!!
It also has some funny ones when Calvin and Hobbes ride off such giant snow mountains such as "Gizzard Gulch". I think has to be the coolest collection yet I highly recomend it.

Some parents tell me that "Calvin and Hobbes" isn't a comic, it's a documentary.

Calvin is the small boy with a vivid life of mind, or over-active imagination, or clear break from consensual reality, choose your words. Hobbes is a mysterious being. With Calvin, he's a charming, philosophical, debonair spirit of the natural world. When Calvin's parents appear, he becomes something completely different - if you don't already know, I won't spoil the surprise.

Calvin travels to distant planets, he battles dinosaurs or becomes them, he commands travel through time, and he is plagued by his evil robot alter-ego. His parents and teachers disagree, of course. Through it all, he remains blindly and merrily the star of his own show. There really is something seductive about his little world, and the way it spins only around himself. If there's a tragedy in growing up, Calvin leaves it for you to define for yourself.

This is a wonderful collection of C&H strips. It's too bad that Watterson shut the comic strips down long ago, but he didn't want C&H to lose their freshness. Maybe he need not have worried - ten years later, these haven't lost anything.

//wiredweird

This collection of Calvin and Hobbes strips is just a bit more twisted than many of the other collections. The very first strip in the book sets the tone. In the middle of the night Calvin wakes up and says he's thirsty. Calvin then goes for a drink of water. Hobbes jumps off the bed and pounces on Calvin as he makes his way back to bed. He parents find him in the hall with Hobbes on top of him, mumbling "homicidal psycho jungle cat."

While the opening strip is humorous, there are even better strips. Another favorite is one of Calvin's infamous "show and tell" strips. Calvin says he has nothing for show and tell, but he tells everyone that during the daytime his mom puts on a patriotic leotard, a cape and knee-high, high-heeled boots to fight crime. The teacher sends a note home with Calvin that his parent's look over together. His father's comment? "Wow, show me that outfit sometime."

The breadth of strips is consistent with other Calvin and Hobbes books, but for some reason these strips gave me more laughs than many of my other Calvin and Hobbes Books. However, the funniest strips often seem to be the cruelest. For example, Suzy follows a series of signs regarding an "important message," ending in a sign that says, "Important message: Look Out!" We then see Calvin sitting on a branch dropping a snowball, saying, "It's like shooting fish in a barrel."

I enjoy Calvin and Hobbes a lot. Of all the illustrated books I have, Calvin and Hobbes are among the funniest, and the most consistent. This particular collection is particularly funny, though a bit more bizarre than many of the other collections. However, it is the twisted nature of some of the strips that make them so interesting and funny. If you are a Calvin and Hobbes fan or just looking for a smile, here is an excellent book.

"From now on," says Calvin, `I'll connect the dots in my OWN way." In the strips featured in HOMICIDAL PSYCHO JUNGLE CAT, Calvin and cartoonist Bill Watterson do just that: they connect dots by looking at the world through the very old eyes of a young boy, and the results are both hilarious and thought-provoking.

A decade ago, Calvin and his buddy Hobbes the tiger romped through the daily comics in a ground-breaking strip. The humor was often dark, the artwork (especially in the Sunday versions) was unique, and Calvin's self-absorbed observations were sometimes too close to my own private thoughts for comfort.

This volume, published in 1994, is Calvin at his best. The book includes daily and full-color Sunday strips for about a year. We see Calvin in a four-season cycle from the trademark snowmen of winter to the tormenting of Susie-next-door in high summer. All of the characters that made the strip great are included. This collection is an excellent way to become reacquainted with Calvin or to discover him for the first time.

This is by far the best Calvin and Hobbes book ever written. It contains Calvin as Stupendous Man trying to pass his test, mean letters from Hobbes, and a best poster contest. Spaceman Spiff will leave you laughing and so will the dinosaour ones. Heck the whole book will leave you laughing. You're going to want to read more and more of it.

This book is called Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson. This book is great. It's very entertaining and funny. This book could be read by adults and children. Some words are difficult. It's a comic strip. The characters are Calvin and Hobbes. Calvin has a very big imagination. Hobbes is his stuffed toy and he thinks it a real tiger. It has many stories and they are all funny.It's cool. I want all people to read it. It's cool, funny, and very ammusing.

Yet another lovely Calvin and Hobbes collection, and one of my favorites, along with "There's Treasure Everywhere", "Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons", and "The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book".
The highlights of this book include one series where Calvin transforms into Stupendous Man at school (but gets stuck in his locker in the process), and another series where Calvin partakes in a school traffic safety poster contest ("Be Careful or Be Roadkill!").

In conclusion, this book is worth every penny; of course, that's to be expected of Calvin and Hobbes. And the strip on page 60 is my personal favorite for this collection.