Bill Watterson - The Complete Calvin and Hobbes First Edition


--- "Everything familiar has disappeared! The World Looks Brand-New!"

This post, on the 2005 first edition of The Complete Calvin and Hobbes, is dedicated to a colleague who is moving on to greener pasture. He commented that Bookporn Club is a little too high brow and some comic is appreciated. I'm not much of a comic person, but the one comic strip that I would read was Calvin and Hobbes.


Bill Watterson gave life to the ebullient and irreverent Calvin and his part pet and part companion Hobbes from November 18 1985 to 31 December 1995 and, in the process, regaled millions with the callow duo's endearing, sometimes sardonic, banter. It is interesting that the names were based on the French protestant reformer John Calvin and the English philosopher John Hobbes famed for his book Leviathan that popularized the concept of social contract. I don't remember Calvin and Hobbes dealing with much religion, but they certainly challenged entrenched social contractual covenants.

The collection is published in 2005 by the University Press Syndicate in three books and comprises all the Calvin and Hobbes strips save the original one from November 28, 1985. Each book is in excess of 3kg, and the entire set with the box weighs a hefty 10.5kg. This collection is easily available on ebay, but be prepared to pay more for delivery due to the weight. Also, although most of the collections are advertised as flawless or mint, they usually have serious tears at the end pages: the paper used is simply not strong enough to hold the book's weight.


The final strip.

Book One.

Title Page for Book One.
Illustration at the verso of the title page.

The copyright page. There is a 2nd edition of the same collection published in 2014 in four, instead of three, books.


Acknowledgement page.

Bill Watterson also wrote an Introduction for the book, detailing how Calvin and Hobbes came about. Here's an interesting fact.

Here's another.

Here's the third.

These are the first three Calvin and Hobbes strips.







That's all folks.

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