The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book: More than just Another Collection

Remember “Calvin and Hobbes?” Along with “Bloom County,” “The Far Side,” “Peanuts,” and “The Norm,” this is one of my favorite comic strips of all time. It had been a while since I had read any of my Calvin books, and when some friends recommended that I pick up the Tenth Anniversary Book, I did what my friends told me to. Because that’s the kind of guy I am. If they told me to jump off a bridge…well, you know how that goes.

Bill Watterson had released more than ten compilations of “Calvin and Hobbes” comic strips when this book was published in 1995, and for this special anniversary, he wanted to do something a little bit different. Instead of just a collection of strips as we had all already seen in the newspaper, Watterson decided to give us the origins and insights of that boy and his tiger, and his own struggles as a writer and artist.

It’s a topic I’m passingly familiar with—I’ve drawn political cartoons for my university newspaper off and on for several years. But that’s for fun, and it’s as I want to do it. I don’t have a regular cast of characters, and if something just doesn’t work, I can do something completely different. Watterson talks about developing his cast, and about several unsold strips before he found success with Calvin & Hobbes. I can’t imagine the deadline pressures of having to provide a continuing strip𤽅 new strips each year. Watterson addresses the toll that this takes on him as an artist, and although this was published before his retirement, you can tell he’s becoming disenchanted with the job and all the hoops he has to jump through.

Watterson has several extensive essays in the book, about the nature of comics, licensing issues (he famously or infamously refused to let his syndicate license any Calvin merchandise), sabbaticals, Sunday Comics, his influences (including “Peanuts,” “Krazy Kat” and “Pogo”), and the process of writing comic strips. All were quite revelatory, especially considering I thought I knew everything about comic strips. You learn something new every day!

Some of the most interesting insight into the characters comes as Watterson introduces each character in the cast—we find out that Calvin ISN’T based on Watterson’s son (he doesn’t have any children) or on memories of his own childhood. He discusses the “gimmick” of Hobbes being “real” around Calvin and stuffed around other people, and how that’s misunderstood. Of all the characters in the strip, he writes that Calvin’s dad is the one most based on a real person, Watterson’s own father. He also lets a great secret escape—that Susie Derkins, Calvin’s nemesis, is the kind of girl he would have had a crush on in elementary school (even though she’d have cooties).

The real treat is in the main body of the book, as Watterson explores strips and entire story arcs from the first ten years of “Calvin and Hobbes.” He writes little introductions for them, explaining what their source of inspiration was, strips he especially liked, things that he felt didn’t work, and strips that inspired a lot of reader feedback (good or bad). They had me laughing out loud in places, and I actually cried twice: there was a two-week story arc where Calvin finds an injured baby raccoon and he and his parents try to nurse it back to health; when it dies, he tries to cope with death for the first time in his young life. This was cited as the first time Watterson tackled a more serious subject, and he pulled it off perfectly. The second time I cried was when Calvin broke his dad’s binoculars accidentally—while “tossing them to myself as I was running down the sidewalk…” Calvin punishes himself over and over before finally confessing to his dad, who chews the hell out of him and ultimately forgives him—when Calvin breaks down and starts crying, so do I.

I’m a softie. I haven’t read any “Calvin and Hobbes” since becoming a father, and I’m finding that I’m reading these with a totally different perspective, which makes them both warmer and scarier… Before I had always read them thinking “ah, that’s SO what I would have done when I was a pup” or sometimes “I actually DID that!” And now I’m reading them thinking of Miles and the stuff I’ve already seen him do (good and bad) and I’m excited and petrified to see what’s ahead. Plus Calvin has an enormous head, not unlike Miles.

In the two-hundred plus pages of comic strips you’re sure to find favorites you remember, and get new insight into the characters and situations. I didn’t ever pick this one up because I figured I had read all of the Calvin strips there were, and didn’t need any more. I passed this gem up for too long. Don’t make the same mistake.

In his closing essay, Watterson says in part:

“When cartoons dig beyond glib punch lines, cheap sentimentality, and tidy stories to deeper, truthful experiences, they can really touch people and connect us all. …I continue to believe that comics are an art form capable of any level of beauty, intelligence, and sophistication.”

Even when they use the word “Boogerbrain.”

Pick this one up for the “Calvin and Hobbes” fan on your list.