Calvin and Hobbes was a daily comic
strip written and illustrated by Bill Watterson, following the humorous antics of Calvin, an imaginative six-year old boy and Hobbes, his energetic and sardonic — albeit stuffed — tiger. The strip was syndicated from November 18, 1985 to December 31, 1995. At its height, Calvin and Hobbes was carried by over 2,400 newspapers worldwide. To date, more than 30 million copies of 18 Calvin and Hobbes
books have been printed.<1>
The strip is vaguely set in the contemporary Midwestern United States, on the outskirts of suburbia. The location is apparently inspired by Chagrin Falls, Ohio, where Watterson lived. On the back of the first Calvin and Hobbes treasury, Calvin is portrayed as a giant destroying downtown Chagrin Falls, holding the local popcorn shop in his hands. On another occasion, Hobbes recalls that Calvin's house is near the letter "E" in the word "STATES" on a map of the U.S. For more details, see setting of Calvin and Hobbes.
Calvin and Hobbes themselves appear in most of the
strips, though several have focused instead upon Calvin's family. The broad themes of the strip deal with Calvin's flights of fantasy, his friendship with Hobbes, his misadventures, his views on a diverse range of
political and cultural
issues and his relationships and interactions with his parents, classmates, educators, and other members of society. The dual nature of Hobbes is also a recurring motif; Calvin sees Hobbes as alive, while other characters see him as a stuffed animal, a point discussed more fully in Hobbes' main article. Unlike political strips such as Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury, the series does not mention specific political figures, but does examine broad issues like environmentalism and the flaws of opinion
Calvin and Hobbes books: There are eighteen Calvin and Hobbes books, published from 1987 to 2005. These include eleven
collections, which form a complete archive of the newspaper strips, except for a single daily strip from November 28, 1985. (The collections do contain a strip for this date, but it is not the same strip that appeared in some newspapers. The alternate strip, a joke about Hobbes taking a bath in the washing machine, has circulated around the Internet.) "Treasuries" usually combine the two preceding collections with bonus material, and include color reprints of Sunday comics.
A complete collection of Calvin and Hobbes strips, in three hardcover volumes, with a total 1440 pages, was released on October 4, 2005, by Andrews McMeel Publishing. It also includes color prints of the art used on paperback covers, the Treasuries' extra illustrated stories and poems, and a new introduction by Bill Watterson, who is now happily teaching himself to paint. It is notable, however, that the alternate 1985 strip is still omitted, and two other strips (January 7, 1987, and November 25, 1988) have altered dialogue.
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