Every strip Bill Watterson wrote for Calvin and Hobbes is being released in a beautiful looking boxed set. Far Side did something similar last year, and though I'm not that big a fan of the strip I continue to salivate over it.
I own nearly every Calvin and Hobbes book already, but the packaging of the boxed set is enough to make me want them again. I'm surprised by how good the strip really is. Though I've read them a million and a half times I still find myself amazed and in awe of the genius of Watterson. The jokes aren't always funny anymore, but the manner in which he leads up to the jokes is pure genius. But the joy of any Calvin strip lies within the artwork. Watterson is a true artist, and made some of the most visually stimulating images I've ever seen in a strip.
So take out your old, tattered copy of "Revenge of the Baby Sat" poor a glass of Earl Gray, and enjoy a bit of pure comic genius.
Then purchase the boxed set to put in my stocking this Christmas.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
I think I'll pass. I like C&H alright, though. Pretty funny stuff. I hope all your xmas wishes come true, Brew!
i loved calvin and hobbes and like Brew, have about 7 or 8 of the books... last year I went on a reading spree of them and found 98% no longer funny and many were very preachy about environmental factors... maybe my tastes will peek in a year or two again.
Isn't there a sticker of Calvin peeing into a cup of Earl Grey. I hate those, btw. Read somewhere that those stickers were much reviled by Watterson. I guess he sold the stuff to the wrong folks. Now they have Calvin kneeling in the shadow of the cross...What gives?!?!?!?
Yep, gotta hate cartoonists who pretend this world is finite and that we aught to conserve. I'll agree its not as funny as I thought as a kid, but I still enjoy the cartooning immensely.
What gives Sip is that all of those cartoons are bootlegs. Watterson has never sold the Calvin images to anybody, but people steal it all the time.
It's hard for me to enjoy C & H anymore, too. Not only for the preachy/environmental stuff, but a comment Watterson made in the 10th Anniversary book. He said (paraphrasing), "You can can call them whatever you want, but comic books are just plain dumb." He's entitled to his opinion, but that comment is ignorant, especially considering that comic books are a spin-off of the comic strip. I don't know. It just bugs me when someone who obviously hasn't read a comic book in the last twenty years makes a statement like that. Also, he comes off as sort of pompous and full of himself in that book. Sorry to rant.
I can see the pompous in him too when I read his comments in that book stubbs gave me for my birthday...
The strips that have me laughing with tears in my eyes are the ones that have calvin making a simple face...
My fave is the one where he thinks he is going to win an art contest... in his mind he is seeing all these newspaper headlines "Wonderboy get parade in his honor!" subheading: "Drives firetruck, injurs few!" And a pic of calvin with his triabngle smile holding up hobbes... kills me.
I dont know why, but i got the feeling that waterson felt religion was silly too.
I thought they were pretty cute. I'm just not as much into comics and stuff as I used to be. There's nothing wrong with them and I still like them. I'm just not very good with that genre. I leave it to more talented people. I feel like I need to concentrate more on my own style and genre, so I mostly read literary/classical lit, now. I do, on ocassion, enjoy a good comic book, though. I'll tell you this much, though. If I hear of an author getting full of himself, I tire of him/her very quickly. When you're writing becomes all about you, your audience has been reduced to you and only you and your writing becomes pretty useless. That's where all the religious books irk me, too. But, I'll stop before I get started...
Post a Comment