Reviews (22)

very funny
DANG I wish Watterson would have never retired. But that is just because of the appeal to be found in his comics.
Doing a few chores for mom/spouse just to get permission to read Calvin is completely understandable. In other words, this is not a waste of time.

Problem child now, creative genius later
Calvin is an extremely imaginative child and with his stuffed tiger Hobbes, engages in a series of adventures that are amusing, but also contain a serious purpose. Due to his short attention span and vivid imagination, Calvin does poorly in school and creates serious problems for his parents. Which is a description of the childhood of many people who went on to have very successful careers in a creative field. When I was young, I played a game called pretend, where for hours, I would imagine myself living various roles. Almost every night, from the time my mother finished dishes and vacated the kitchen until it was time to go to bed, I let my imagination run wild. It was a very fun time, as there were no limits on what I could do. In their biographies, many creative people refer to the vivid imaginations they had as children and how it led to problems in school.
This collection of cartoons from the Calvin and Hobbes collection will amuse everyone. However, for those whose imaginations get in the way of their daily lives, they will have a special meaning. A problem child now, quite likely a successful artist, writer, entertainer or cartoonist in the future.

Editorial Review

Now that Bill Watterson has retired from drawing syndicated cartoons, the only way to get our Calvin and Hobbes fixes is through his book collections. The 10th Anniversary Book is particularly notable, because in addition to getting some of his most wonderful cartoons, we also gain a sense of Watterson as a person.

Reviews (68)

The Last of the Magic
This is the final collection of comics from CALVIN AND HOBBES, arguably my favorite comic strip of all times.Cartoonist Bill Watterson chose to retire before he drained all the magic out of his characters.While I'm disappointed, that is probably wise since this collection shows he was still at the top of his game.

Calvin can make an adventure out of everything, whether it's having Susie over for an afternoon (a great day for GROSS), trying to get out of school, playing Calvinball with Rosalyn, or putting off a leaf collection project until the very last night, his antics are sure to make you laugh.The genius of the strip is that we're often laughing at ourselves.Hobbes's comments are often funny and true, and watch out for the Chewing magazine strips.They hit a little too close to home.

This strip got better as it went along, and there is some classic stuff here.It's a little bitter sweet reading the last few knowing it's the end.And I still want to know what the noodles incident was.

While there are some strips out there I enjoy, I still miss this great strip.If you somehow managed to miss it, pick up any book today.It's guaranteed to have you laughing in no time.

Three Words...
Amusing, Sensational & Marvelous. There will never be another thing like Calvin & Hobbes!

Editorial Review

Reviews (38)

laughable (that's a good thing)
DANG I wish Watterson would have never retired. But that is just because of the appeal to be found in his comics.
Doing a few chores for mom/spouse just to get permission to read Calvin is completely understandable. In other words, this is not a waste of time.

A fantastic collection of early Calvin and Hobbes comics
The Essential Calvin and Hobbes, first published in 1988, is chock full of early Calvin and Hobbes comic strips.No cartoonist, not even Charles Schultz, has captured the magical essence of childhood the way Bill Watterson did in this strip, and it should come as no surprise (although it did to Watterson) that Calvin and Hobbes quickly developed an incredibly loyal following.This strip went way beyond mere popularity.While I was in college, the campus newspaper decided to stop running Calvin and Hobbes (I think this was during one of Watterson's sabbaticals) - this resulted in nothing less than a furor on campus, as countless students immediately demanded the return of C&H.In a matter of days, Calvin and Hobbes were right back where they belonged.

How does a comic strip featuring a mischievous six-year-old boy and his stuffed tiger attract a fiercely loyal following of adults?Most adults would love to be children again, to know the freedom and sense of wonder that somehow withers inside the human soul after the onset of puberty.Calvin and Hobbes vividly recreates the feelings and emotions of the very essence of childhood.It brings back memories of things we forgot far too long ago, and it thus reawakens the deepest parts of our ever-hardening souls.Reading this comic strip is the next best thing to being a child yourself.Calvin does everything you used to do: he takes time to stomp in mud puddles, he lets his imagination run wild to make thrilling adventures out of even the most mundane tasks, he ponders the same deep questions you are now, as an adult, afraid to ask, he goes for the gusto no matter what sort of risk is involved, he is in every way a perfect specimen of childhood.Who, as a child, didn't pretend to be a dinosaur, walk around with a hideous expression in hopes of your facing freezing that way, tease the girls (or boys) you claimed to hate, journey to distant worlds unseen by human eyes, etc.?

Of course, Hobbes is just as important to the comic strip as Calvin.Hobbes is a tiger, Calvin's best and constant friend, a fellow partaker in the joys of childish innocence.To Calvin, Hobbes really is all that, and that is how we see him as well - until, that is, someone else comes into the frame, when he suddenly becomes nothing more than a stuffed animal.Watterson is a fantastic comic artist, and there is just something captivating about the way he draws Hobbes in his stuffed animal form.Everything about Watterson's art is fantastic, though, particularly the way it captures the emotions of its two principal characters.

Sadly, we have only ten years of comic memories in the form of Calvin and Hobbes, as the inscrutable Bill Watterson retired (around the age of 37) in 1995 and quite obviously has no plans of returning to the public arena.Watterson is actually frighteningly private and seems to be living a life of unmatched solitude.I find this extraordinarily sad: here is a man who captured the essence of childhood so vividly in the form of Calvin and Hobbes, a world bursting with life and possibilities, yet now he seems to have withdrawn from life itself.We must be thankful we do have as much Calvin and Hobbes material as we do, and The Essential Calvin and Hobbes, with 255 pages of black and white daily strips and color Sunday strips, features much more than just a chunk of it in and of itself.

Reviews (38)

brilliant
DANG I wish Watterson would have never retired. But that is just because of the appeal to be found in his comics.
Doing a few chores for mom/spouse just to get permission to read Calvin is completely understandable. In other words, this is not a waste of time.

There's a party in his head and you're invited
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

One of the last great newspaper comics...
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.

Reviews (42)

two thimbs up
DANG I wish Watterson would have never retired. But that is just because of the appeal to be found in his comics.
Doing a few chores for mom/spouse just to get permission to read Calvin is completely understandable. In other words, this is not a waste of time.

Calvin The Great
Another great slab paperback filled with the very best of this over active duo.Themed for the holidays, Calvin and Hobbes get up to their usual mischief at the detriment of Mom, Dad, Susie and others.Read it over and over again just to get a little laughter in a boring day.Highly recommended.

Don't you wish everyday was summer?
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.

Summer is the time when Calvin and Hobbes can hang out in the treehouse and plot their next attacks on Susie, if they're not busy fighting with each other, that is.This book also contains some of Calvin's best snowman art.Procrastinators will love Calvin's newest invention - the Time Machine, or perhaps not?This is definitely one of the best C&H books around.

Reviews (41)

THE GREATEST STRIP EVER!
Indispensible?You bet your &%$# it is.Calvin and Hobbes continues to be the greatest comic strip ever, even several years now after creator Bill Watterson retired.Like Barry Sanders, Watterson retired at the top of his game, leaving fans longing for more but leaving a body of work that will be cherished for decades to come.

I've now been able to share with my children the joy of reading this fantastic strip.Calvin & Hobbes bizzare adventures as seen through the mind of a six year old little boy with the sardonic wisdom of an old man.Even after owning over a dozen collections I still look forward to each and every one.

Indispensable indeed!
But how can you single this one out to be indispensable when ALL Calvin and Hobbes books are must haves/keeps forever? In this book you'll find all the usual Spaceman Spiff adventures as he flys through desert canyons on remote menacing planets, loads of Stupendous Man hijinks and endless laughs as Calvin never ceases to terrorize and menace everyone around him. But there is not enough of Hobbes. Even if Hobbes was in every panel on every page there still wouldn't be enough of him. I absolutely LOVE Hobbes. I want him. He IS the greatest.

Reviews (7)

Food Writing Without the Recipes
One of the things I like about Trillin is that he is not a cook. There are no recipes in this book. Although I do enjoy reading food books by people who cook, it's nice to get the view from an unadulterated eater now and then.

Trillin uses this book to highlight foods that he can't get at home in Manhattan, and that is a list that is getting shorter all the time. In fact, you can get exotic foods almost anywhere now. And that is just why he has a hard time luring his daughters back to New York from the West Coast. They can get New York bagels and anything else in California.

I love Trillin's dry humor and skepticism. This is my first Calvin Trillin book (although I have enjoyed his magazine essays) and I'm looking forward to reading his past works.

A Delicious Book
I have a soft spot for food writers. Maybe it's because I enjoy a good meal, perhaps too much, but I think it's because I've found food writers to be charming in their obsession with food related minutiae. No one is more charming than Calvin Trillin whose "register of frustration and deprivation" leads him to travel the world seeking those foods that he can't live without. the result of this is Feeding a Yen. I can't put this book down. He's like an adventurous and kindly uncle. It's a treat.

Editorial Review

Throughout the 1970s, as he wrote the "American Journal" feature for the New Yorker, Calvin Trillin crossed and recrossed the continent. Braver than most transients, he dined in every manner of restaurant, sampling all kinds of native cuisine. He tirelessly sniffed out plain but great joints where the local people loved to eat. "[Don't take me to the] place you took your parents on their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, [but] the place you went the night you came home after fourteen months in Korea." As a result of such hard-nosed pursuit of good food, this "Walt Whitman of American eats" produced three delightful books chronicling his gastronomic journey, and they have now been collected into The Tummy Trilogy. Trillin is a marvelous writer, affable and witty under any circumstances. He's also an extremely enthusiastic eater, so the books are filled with gourmet brio. Here's a sample from the first book, American Fried:

ME: Anybody who served a milkshake like this in Kansas City would be put in jail.

ALICE: You promised not to indulge in any of that hometown nostalgia while I'm eating. You know it gives me indigestion.

ME: What nostalgia? Facts are facts. The kind of milkshake that I personally consumed six hundred gallons of at the Country Club Daily is an historical fact in three flavors. Your indigestion is not from listening to my fair-minded remarks on the food of a particular American city. It's from drinking that gray skim milk this bandit is trying to pass off as a milkshake.