The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book: Volume 14

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.

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.

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.