I love Calvin & Hobbes.
I read most of the strips in Portuguese and then I found this edition with all the strips and couldn't resist.
So I'm slowly rereading it. ( )

My Gateway to comics!! ( )

Unlike some of the other reviewers, I was not lucky enough to be able to read Calvin and Hobbes growing up. Here and there, I might see one or two strips linked to on the Internet, but Calvin and Hobbes had until recently, remained a curiosity to me. Having taken the plunge on this collection, I ended up spending many wonderful evenings working my way through every strip. When I have the time, I look forward to being able to do so again.

For those who don't know much about Calvin and Hobbes, the strip revolves around six year old Calvin and his faithful stuffed tiger companion, Hobbes. Their adventures, both fictional and imaginary, provide a quirky insight into the suburban American life of the eighties and nineties. Don't be put off by the childish setting: Calvin and Hobbes are both capable of some fairly penetrating philosophical insights that will make you sit back and reconsider your life and the world even as you chuckle. I recommend you look up a strip or two to get a feel for Watterson's delightful brand of humour. Some that stood out in my memory are the one where Calvin wears his Dad's glasses and sarcastically mimics him, as well as the one where his dad puts off work to go and play with Calvin in the snow. Watterson uses some recurring jokes that are very evident if you are reading the collection in one go (snowballs/Susie and summer camping holiday spring to mind) but their effect is not diminished. One other thing to be mentioned is the introduction by Bill Watterson at the start of the collection, which helps provide some context for the situation in which Calvin and Hobbes was created and written. The result was that as I approached the end of the third volume, I found many of the panels extremely poignant in the knowledge that they were coming to an end. Dose feels....

In terms of the books themselves: they come as a large three volume box set, reassuringly weighty. The comics are printed in thick, quality paper, vibrant colour where applicable, and with dates attached to each one. The editors have also taken the liberty of rearranging the order of some sets of comics such that a single storyline is always put together, even if you end up with a few Sunday strips in a row - very helpful for the whole reading experience. The set exudes value - it comes strongly recommended. ( )

How cool a present is this? I was completely surprised when my wife dropped this on my lap on Christmas morning. Almost instantly I was back in my teenage years reaching for the paper every day to see what Calvin and his best friend Hobbes were up to. Goofing around, social commentary, subversiveness, this strip had it all and I absolutely love it to this day. ( )

Ok, the only reason I took off half a star is because of two reasons. Number one, the comics are split between three volumes. I'm an industrial mechanic who works in a factory lifting cast-iron pumps and wrenching on twelve inch flanges, and even I think these books are too heavy. They should've been split into five or six volumes. Secondly, I feel that some of Bill Watterson's "commentary track" should've been included. I'm not sure what the legality of this is, or maybe Bill didn't want it put in, but I suggest you get the C&H 10th Anniversary Book as an accompaniment to this box set. THAT ASIDE this is the end-all-be-all in terms of Calvin & Hobbes collections, so if you're a fan, you cannot do better than this. ( )

This is pure AWESOME ( )

Every Sunday I looked forward to the Sunday newspaper with Calvin and Hobbes the sweet dessert at the end. Calvin and Hobbes could make you cry, make you laugh, or teach you something - pretty amazing for a six year old boy and a stuffed tiger. ( )

Calvin and Hobbes is a great and classic graphic novel collection about the characters Calvin and Hobbes and how they get into misadventures.
The art style is mostly comic book and water color as well as illustrated. ( )

“Calvin and Hobbes” lasted only ten years, but glorious they were. I was fascinated by the strip for years. In retrospect, it’s amazing that Watterson squeezed so many silly gags out of so few characters. For the entire run of the series, Calvin tries to avoid work by sneaking into fantasy worlds and misconstruing traditions. Most stories last about two or three weeks and those story lines are frequently invoked, such as Calvin’s trials with his babysitter or his science fiction alter-ego getting lost. Artistically, the weekdays strips are economic and bare while some of the Sunday strips are colorful and detailed. A 20 pound “box set” of strips called “The Complete Calvin and Hobbes” was recently published. It is very pricey and difficult to handle given its enormous size, but it is still quite nice. Fortunately, paperbacks can still be found pretty cheap. ( )

There is very much a reason that out of all the graphic novels I have read, I have chosen to review only Calvin and Hobbes. The comic itself has the ability to transcend generational barriers, providing the reader with a heartwarming experience no matter the age. The very essence of the comic is based upon the imagination of Calvin, and the unboundedness of the youth mind. His imagination perfectly captures the innocence of youth, and allows the reader to escape into such a world. We can once again experience the adventures we would journey upon as a kid, we can feel the emotion and excitement that was there with unknown.
A factor that adds to the comedy and wit of Calvin is seen in Wattersons perfectly cyncial writing style. He manages to balance the innonence of Calvin with a witiness of a cynical adult. The juxtaposition between these two factors always makes a great bit and never seems to get old.
Calvin and Hobbes perfectly captures that feeling of growing up. In my case, it almost made me feel a little upset that I hadn't capitalized on this time period in my life when I should've. Regardless, the comedy and the style of illustration and writing give such a feeling of excitement and asipiration that it wipes away any melancholy that arises. ( )

I mean. All the Calvin and Hobbes EVER in hard-bound, full-size spreads on beautiful paper. A bazillion stars. ( )

You either know the strip or you don't, and if you don't YOU NEED TO. ( )

Who doesn’t love Calvin & Hobbes?

They are funny, brilliant and witty. The art, the ideas, the humour. Everything about these strips is perfect.

( )

This is the three volume, cloth bound, boxed set. It contains the complete Calvin and Hobbes series. ( )

Whew...3150 strips, plus all the extras Watterson drew for the Complete collection. I enjoyed many of them when they were first published (didn't always have a paper subscription), and despite having this collection since it was published in 2005 - had it shipped to Korea, and nearly lost it due to a fire - I'm only now finally reading it in its entirety. There are a great many strips that made me laugh (and even think), and I'll say his final year after his second sabbatical was more brilliant than perfunctory.

Good stuff. Recommended for nostalgic fans and those who don't mind spending a bit of time enjoying the irreverence of Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes. ( )

Being born in the late 80s, I was a bit young to enjoy this strip as it was "live," but my dad had a ratted copy of "The Days Are Just Packed" and it was one of the few books all of my siblings fought over, regardless of age. I've started and added to my own Calvin and Hobbes collection over the years, but my parents had the brilliant idea to gift me with the entire collection last Christmas. Each volume is hefty and beautiful (they weigh more than my hardback Harry Potter books do), and reading through everything in chronological order was like revisiting my childhood. I'm not much of a comics reader, but Calvin and Hobbes is special. It captures the essence of being a kid—not to mention being a kid during the time period I was a kid—and is genuinely funny, smart, satirical, heartwarming, and nostalgic. I love this comic strip, and I'll never tire of re-reading it. Calvin and Hobbes is magic. ( )

I love Calvin and Hobbes. ( )

I just love this comic and having them all together in the one box set is just awesome ( )

Calvin and Hobbes is the best comic on the face of this planet. Hilarity all the way through. I frequently re-read the books. ( )

Every Calvin and Hobbes strip, beginning to end. It's the likability of Peanuts with the humor of Dennis the Menace. I'll never know how Bill Watterson came up with so many unique strips using only four characters -- one of which is imaginary (or is he?). Peanuts added and dropped new faces all the time and Dennis the Menace was only one panel.

When I was younger, I got my fix of C & H collections in the library, but reading them in chronological order, you can see the scatters and misfires in the beginning, the peaks in the middle, and the shopworn gags in the end.

At this point in time, you either know Calvin and Hobbes or you don't, so I shouldn't need to provide a recommendation. It's expensive, but a piece of Americana is worth it. Just don't let your kid take the crayons to it. ( )

I've been working my way through this first volume of the complete set of Calvin and Hobbes for a few months now. What fun it is to revisit all these strips, in order, in such a beautiful presentation. Reading them in this book, with the dates for all the strips clearly printed underneath them, makes me wonder to what extent I ever actually read these in the newspaper. I have vivid memories of reading the individual collections as a kid, but looking at the dates of the strips I realized that it was unlikely I was looking at the paper when these were printed--the first ones anyway. I was only four years old when the strip started. That is a bit of a startlement--Calvin and Hobbes was so much a part of my childhood, it feels odd that the whole thing began so long before I could have had any appreciation of it at all. But in any case, this is a lovely collection (I have the boxed set of the complete paperback edition) with a nice introduction by Watterson and all the "additional" artwork from the individual collections. Recommended. ( )

The dog gnawed on volume two and I thought, "will my husband miss the dog all that much?"

Watterson never drew a single C&H cartoon that I did not love. Not one in all those years. So naturally I had to own them all. After the dog episode they spent three years under my son's bed: one year at one residence and two in another. We tried softcovers, but they all disintegrated with constant wear from the children. And they were woefully incomplete. ( )

Calvin is the paragon of a combination of satire, intellect, and philosophy. Plus the kid's a major ass sometimes. I love him for it, the crazy bugger. One of my favorite strips is when he's hammering nails into the coffee table and his mother walks in and yells "WHAT ARE YOU DOING" and Calvin, my hero, says with the blankest look on his face "Is that a trick question". If this doesn't prompt you to read it, you have no sense of humor and can't be my friend. In a serious tone, which I didn't know I had, I say to you- read this comic for it is worth your time. Calvin is there for you, to make you laugh, to make you think and to make you imagine. ( )

Excellent collection of books, a must have for any C&H lover. The insights from Watterson as well to the process, the struggle to get it published, refusing to commercialized it, and the going out on top are wonderful as well. ( )

OMG, I received this a few Christmas' ago and it made me super happy.

Hard-backed, probably a thousand pages each, and weighing about the same as the largest dictionary in a middle school library. This is every single strip in chronological order printed on excellent paper and including comments from Bill Watterson.

A simply beautiful collection of three volumes that come in a cardboard case. A bit awkward for any kind of regular reading, this is still a positively excellent collection.

Created for the true Calvin & Hobbes fan. ( )