There was a thread in Other that got locked, and now I have a question for you Calvin & Hobbes experts:

The "essential," "authoritative," and "indispensable" books: do these collect ALL the strips from the earlier collections or just a selection of?

That is, if I wanted to collect all the C&H books to have all the strips, do I buy these three or the six original collections in addition to the latter 5 books?

IIRC, you're right. They each collect 2+ of the smaller volumes. I think they even colorized the Sunday strips -- I could be wrong -- there may not have been color Sunday strips before Lazy Sunday Afternoon, but it's been awhile. After those 3 however, they went with the horizontal format books -- beginning I think with Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat.

Thank you.

A year ago I compiled the following list of what exactly is in each of the C&H albums. The strips' original publication dates are in "dd-mm-yy" form since that's how most of us Europeans write them.

The Essential C&H: A C&H Treasury (1988)
contains the albums "C&H" (1987) and "Something Under The Bed Is Drooling" (1988)
18.11.85 – 22.05.87


The C&H Lazy Sunday Book: A Collection Of Sunday C&H Cartoons (1989)
possibly the only C&H album containing the 10 page story 'Spaceman Spiff: Interplanetary Explorer Extraordinaire!'


The Authoritative C&H: A C&H Treasury (1990)
contains the albums "Yukon Ho!" (1989) and "Weirdos From Another Planet!" (1990)
24.05.87 – 26.11.88
01.12.88 – 04.12.88


Attack Of The Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons (1992)
11.06.90 – 16.06.90
18.06.90 – 23.06.90
01.07.90
08.07.90 – 14.07.90
16.07.90 – 10.04.91


The Indispensable C&H (1992)
contains the albums "Revenge Of The Baby-Sat" (1992) and "Scientific Progress Goes 'Boink!'" (1991)
27.11.88 – 30.11.88
05.12.88 – 10.06.90
17.06.90
24.06.90 – 30.06.90
02.07.90 – 07.07.90
15.07.90


The Days Are Just Packed (1993)
11.04.91 – 04.05.91
02.02.92 – 01.11.92
08.11.92


Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat (1994)
02.11.92 – 07.11.92
09.11.92 – 29.08.93


The C&H Tenth Anniversary Book (1995)
selected strips from 18.11.85 to 1995
includes Watterson's comments on some strips


There's Treasure Everywhere (1996)
30.08.93 – 02.04.94
01.01.95 – 19.03.95
03.04.95 – 08.04.95
03.06.95


It's A Magical World (1996)
20.03.95 – 02.04.95
09.04.95 – 31.12.95

Thanks so much Tyler. I'm trying to put together a complete as possible collection, and this makes it easier to see what all those books contain.

Does anyone remember a series with C&H relating to photography? If so, do you know what book it was in?

oh god - that sunday strip where calvin's father convinces calvin the world used to be in black & white - which is why pictures looked that way.... PRICELESS!

C: Dad, how come old photographs are always black and white? Didn't they
have color film back then?
D: Sure they did. In fact, those old photographs ARE in color. It's just the
WORLD was black and white then.

C: Really?
D: Yep. The world didn't turn color until sometime in the 1930s, and it was
pretty grainy color for a while, too.

C: That's really weird.
D: Well, truth is stranger than fiction.

C: But then why are old PAINTINGS in color?! If the world was black and
white, wouldn't artists have painted it that way?
D: Not necessarily. A lot of great artists were insane.

C: But... but how could they have painted in color anyway? Wouldn't their
paints have been shades of gray back then?
D: Of course, but they turned colors like everything else in the '30s.

C: So why didn't old black and white photos turn color too?
D: Because they were color pictures of black and white, remember?

I think that's part of the series. If anyone knows which book...

According to this link http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/ad/diss_toc.pdf it's in the Indispensible anthology.

I plan to buy this soon, so I couldn't check, but I do have Revenge of the Baby Sat and I didn't see it when I flipped through, so it might be in Scientific Progress Goes Boink (which is the other book collected in Indispensible).

Hope that's it.

FYI, it is in Scientific Progress...page 23 to be exact.

-----------------------

I went to Borders today and picked up Calvin and Hobbes: Sunday Pages 1985-1995 I've gone through it, and while he's not as verbose as I would have liked, it was pretty neat.

The format has his finished, but uncolored artwork on one page, and the colored artwork on the opposite page. Nothing new, but you can see the pencil work and some corrections, so if you're an artist or love to study art, this is probably a must.

I don't know if I'd recommend it to the casual fan. These are all available in the collections listed above, so the main draw here is to read Bill Watterson's comments on his work. But since the comments (aside from about a 5-7 page introduction) are squished in under the artwork, he only has room for about 2-3 paragraphs of description, and he doesn't always fill up the area, nor does he comment on all the pieces in this catalog.

Still, pretty neat stuff to me.

hey guys, any suggestions as to how I can pick up hardcover versions of the C&H books..?

I've never seen hardcover editions of books like this. I wouldn't mind some for my Bloom County books, some of the older ones are a little ragged.

What I'd really love is big, huge, hardbound editions of strip number 1, to the very last strip of
C&H
Bloom County/Outland
and
Peanuts, including the old Lil' Folks

all in chronological order.

I hear that.

I seem to recall reading that Fantagraphics has wanted to do something similar for Peanuts for a long time, but Charles Schulz was opposed to such a project.

I've recently started to read Calvin and Hobbes comics, out of sheer nostalgia and such. So far I've read the "The Indespensible Calvin and Hobbes" and "The Essential Calvin and Hobbes". Any other recommendations?

And I really wish that Bill Watterson allowed at least a Hobbes doll. I would love to have one -_-

i would say search around and find a decent deal on the complete calvin and hobbes. if you look around, you could probably find it for around $80 or so and it's a fantastic set.

What he said

By far the best thing I bought last year was the Complete Calvin & Hobbes. I read it all in one month and have returned to several strips since the release. The quality is amazing and the price was great for the huge volumes. Like the others, I say snag that for sure!

I've got the collection sitting on my coffee table and it never fails to get people's attention when we have company. Everyone who picks up the book remarks how beautiful the collection is and I've had more than a few people go out to pick up their own sets. I can't recommend this set highly enough, and the price makes it all the more worthwhile.

" "

After picking up the complete collection, I gave away all of my smaller books. Definately get the collection, it'll be cheaper in the long run. Not to mention, it looks great and has some strips that were missing from the smaller books.

I kept mine in case I want to read them outside the house or lend them out. Also, I bought a lot of them when they first came out.

It seems that they are reprinting the Complete Calvin and Hobbes again. I got them at the Canadian Costco for $85.

What's the hook with the Complete Collection? As far as I understand it comes in three gigantic volumes that are not optimal for casual use? Are there significant additions (essays, other background information) included? It all sounds a bit weird to me, especially considering that you can get all the Calvin & Hobbes albums/treasuries for far less than $80.

I'm not saying it's stupid to buy it, I'm just trying to understand the reasons for it, so that I can convince myself that I need one as well.

The selling point is that they are gigantic. The Sunday strips are bigger than they are in the paperback collections (and in fact, probably bigger than they were in the newspaper).