The fanaticism of fandom knows no reason or logic beyond its own circumvoluted jiggery-pokery that can make a straight line out of one more crooked than the average KKK Grand Wizard or even a normal fad diet ad.
Sometime around late-July I was tossing around an idea to celebrate Calvin & Hobbes?s (C&H) birthday with some online friends. While visiting a related website, I discovered a link that spoke of a new C&H book arriving in September. After crawling around on the floor for the eyeballs that had fallen out of my sockets and rolled under the desk, and sticking a finger into an electric socket to jumpstart my heart, I went willy-nilly to a website of book enthusiasts to post the news. My post had a highly illuminating title:
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! A little history might be in order. Appearing first on Nov. 18, 1985, the C&H strip became as vital as that first sleep-shattering jolt of coffee to breakfast paper readers. Uncompromisingly portraying the altered reality of a six year old with more imagination than a puddle of Ally McSchlemiel writers, creator Bill Watterson put the fun back in the funnies. Though the cast contained exasperating (and exasperated) parents, the smart icky neighbor girl, the terrifying babysitter, the crafty teacher, the bully with the brains of half a booger (wait, no, that?s the girl), the focus lay on the adventures within Calvin?s mind, or with his stuffed tiger friend Hobbes, who came alive for Calvin thanks to an esoteric process pioneered and patented by six year olds, who aren?t telling.
Calvin has had unparalleled success with questions and conundrums that have for decades flummoxed the best and brightest minds humanity has to offer. He conclusively proved that aliens exist, and they?re willing to exchange the Earth for fifty alien leaves and yearn for the arcane arithmetical knowledge possessed only by Calvin, Boy Genius. Utilizing ultra-tech apparatus such as cardboard boxes, Calvin has triumphantly proven the feasibility of time traveling, transmogrification, and cloning.
I don?t know about you, but a disproportionate percentage of my laughter time over the years is connected to the strip. So when Watterson, exhausted by the demands of a daily schedule, decided to call it quits at the end of 1995 at the height of the strip?s popularity, it was to me the departure of a dear friend.
Small wonder then that I temporarily took leave of my senses at the thought of anything, even a collection of previously released material from Watterson.
Calvin and Hobbes: Sunday Pages, 1985-1995 became the first item I?ve pre-ordered. Multiple copies.
I gleefully watched the book break into the amazon.com top 1000 prior to the publication date of September 15. When the date came and passed with no shipping notice on my order details page, it was only because I like you was preoccupied with 9-11 that the world was spared from another uberterrorist undertaking. The copies finally arrived early October, but, with the pressures of school and the passing of an acquaintance to cope with, it wasn?t until late October that I got a chance to go through the book, and that was only because of the need to ascertain its contents in case I could incorporate the info into the C&H birthday celebration project. Heck, I didn?t touch
my copy?I went over to the local Books-A-Million and handled
theirs.
The softcover book reprints 36 Sunday strips spanning the decade of C&H?s existence, handpicked by Watterson for an exhibit at the Ohio State Univ. Cartoon Research Library. The book presents the print-ready black and white version of the strip on the left of a two-page spread, followed by the finished color strip on the adjacent page. The topic of Sunday strips deserves another diversion. When Watterson first started with C&H, he found the Sunday format with its three blocky rows of panels (which cartoon page editors could restack upon their whims) heavily restrictive; he felt hampered, held back from allowing Calvin?s world to fully unfurl. After years of wrangling, he was finally allowed to work with a format that gave him complete control over the panel sequencing, and the Sunday strips took off for parts unknown from early 1992.
So. . . 36 Sunday strips that we?ve seen before. Here they are in full size and color, as they were meant to be seen. You can certainly see the evolution of the main characters? forms as
cahill (12/10/01) mentions. As snapshots from Calvin?s universe, the strips establish the personalities of the central characters, but prior knowledge is certainly helpful. I don?t think new readers will understand everything that happens. The introduction of Rosalyn the babysitter, the early fluidity of the dancing ?LP at 78 rpm? strip, Spaceman Spiff, the Apartment 3-G type strip of playing ?House? with Susie are garnished with a few sentences of commentary as in the earlier
The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book (TAB). You can learn geeky fan trivia such as why an extra bulge appears in a word balloon in an early anti-Cold War strip.
In a strip that has Calvin upset over Hobbes getting lost in the woods, Watterson comments on the challenges of integrating a Sunday strip into the continuity of a storyline that advances by daily strips. Also showcased are some of the ideas Watterson tried out that show him cresting creative challenges even in the earlier Sunday format?the neo-Cubist strip, the lost perspective strip that?s drawn all wrong, the black and white strip drawn without the use of outlines. And of course, the explosion of ideas as Watterson jumped gleefully into the new Sunday format is more than evident. But. . . we?ve seen them all before. . .
. . . though we haven?t seen them in the print-ready B&W format before. These contain the taped on Universal (Watterson?s syndicate) logo, eraser rubouts, whiteout dabs correcting lines, and external gridlines. I?m not sure how relevant these will be to the casual reader. . . though it?s always interesting unearthing how something works. What might surprise is the scarcity of major corrections in the print-ready pages, knowing that Watterson minimized his use of pencils, preferring to ink most of it to create that quirky spontaneity that made merely
looking at C&H such fun.
There?re a few B&W versions of note. One of his early 1995 strips features dinosaurs that look gorgeous in B&W as well as color?Watterson has acknowledged elsewhere that his early dinosaurs were horrible by his standards, but he enjoyed learning about them as he tried to draw them better. And the outside border of a beautiful early single-panel strip? about the lethargy and transience of lazy summer days contains directions indicating how editors could cut it up to fit their needs?you can see the amount of thought Watterson put into the presentation. But otherwise, I think these pages will appeal most to the aspiring cartoonist, for whom these B&W versions introduce an interesting conversation on the possibilities of color in the comic art medium.
? www.ucomics.com/calvinandhobbes/viewch.cfm?uc_full_date=19880828
I?ve always enjoyed paper since the day I made some at a young writers? workshop. Printed on matte, thick paper, the weight of the pages provides a pleasant tactile experience that e-books cannot hope to capture with current technology. Watterson mentioned in TAB that comic collections could be printed in this manner to increase their appeal.
In the introduction, Watterson begins with his reflections on C&H half a dozen years after he stopped creating it, mentioning that he?d probably approach some strips differently now. His comment that the novelty of the strip has worn off these days strikes me since he?s reflecting his earlier words about other comic strips catching up with the innovations in Schulz?s
Peanuts. Then he offers a variety of thoughts on the Sunday strips that seem to follow the outline of the TAB, with some extra detail on the reaction of comic page editors and his syndicate to the revised Sunday format. He ends his essay by giving readers a quick glimpse of his current endeavors.
So in the final analysis, what does
Calvin and Hobbes: Sunday Pages, 1985-1995 offer?
? 36 Sunday strips that we?ve seen already, presented in their full glory on one full page and in the print-ready version on the opposite page, most of them with a few lines of commentary reminiscent of the TAB
? B&W strips that, with some notable exceptions, are honestly of dubious relevance to the layperson since they weren?t meant to see the art at the uncolored stage; they will be of interest to budding cartoonists trying to learn about the impact of color in their chosen medium
? Thick, heavy, high quality paper
? Introductory commentary from Watterson that covers a little of the material discussed better in the TAB; the information he offers on his current activities is of course welcome, but upon reflection, rather insufficient
Though we are satiated for the moment, the question we must answer is whether this is enough. I am sure Watterson won?t pull a Michael Jordan, though in my heart of hearts I?m sure a tiny 0.0000001% of me hopes that he will. So what we have to look forward to is the complete C&H collection, slated for a fall 2003 release by Andrews & McMeel. I?m sure when the time comes, I?ll slap my shekels down and stagger out with a few pounds worth of Calvin and Hobbes.
As for
Calvin and Hobbes: Sunday Pages, 1985-1995, I recommend that if you?ve never heard of this duo, you should start with the original
Calvin and Hobbes and laugh your way up the years. And if you?re a fan, you might want to take a look at the book at a store before you make a decision.
I don?t know why I?m wasting my breath. I doubt that actual fans will pay attention to a word I say about anything new from Watterson. I sure didn?t?just got another copy for a friend.
The fanaticism of fandom knows no reason.
Newcomer Network cahill http://www.epinions.com/content_49264234116 The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book http://www.epinions.com/book_mu-2439737 Calvin and Hobbes http://www.epinions.com/book_mu-2691919 t-edication Happy birthday LW! t-mark I love to read. Before I had a chance to experience the Internet, most of my free time was spent on books. In literature, I?m willing to try almost anything. Time is the reason I?m not able to read as often as I?d like to nowadays; I do try to take in at least a few pages of whatever I?m currently reading before I go to sleep daily.
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10.24.01, 12.18, 12.24-5
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