Bill Watterson is a genius. For a tad over a decade Watterson gave us a gift by sharing with us the life of a six year old boy, Calvin, and Hobbes, his (stuffed) tiger and best friend. Calvin is a rambunctious and mischievous child with an over-active imagination and a youthful innocence regarding life's complexities. He, and only he, sees his stuffed tiger, Hobbes, as a living, breathing companion and the reader shares this perspective the majority of the time. Hobbes' demeanor is more suave than his young partner in crime. Their relationship is both touching for its warmth and hilarious for its ebullient confrontations. Their emotional responses and reactions to their life's encounters are so extreme and over-the-top that the reader cannot remain disconnected from the humor. And the themes Watterson weaves throughout are easy to relate to. It's life with a humorous twist and a quirky perspective.

Watterson's talent was two pronged. His writing was hilarious, clever, insightful and sometimes poignant. His drawings and paintings were art that could make you laugh until you had tears rolling down your cheeks. Some cartoonists are one dimensional. Watterson was the whole package. And as far as packages go, this collection is the whole shebang. It contains every strip that he wrote, beautifully presented in three hard-covered volumes in a sturdy slipcase. The paper stock is high quality and the printing is crisp. Watterson's work ethic is evident in 'The Complete Calvin and Hobbes'. Over ten years, the strip never lost its spark. Never was it left to coast on the support of a dedicated fan base or run past its use-by date and die with a whimper. When Watterson ceased producing Calvin and Hobbes, the strip was appearing in thousands of papers and as far afield as the other side of the world. For those new to the world of comics, I cannot offer a better recommendation than the world of Calvin and Hobbes. As an established fan, I already own a lot of Calvin and Hobbes books. I view this set as a top-shelf item, something to be treasured and read with care. The rest of my collection I intend for rigorous daily use and to share with my children. My second child is on the way. My first was a son... I named him Calvin!

An only, lonely child. Bullied at school. Clearly a genius level intellect, he's unchallenged and stifled since nobody, not his parents, and not even his teacher, recognizes this. A father who's always too busy to spend any time with his son. A father who's often seen, get this, reading --*reading* -- rather than paying his only son some attention! A mother, who literally, in strip after strip, throws him out the door. Throws, as in "child flying through the air". A child, and a small child at that, allowed repeatedly to wander alone through the woods! A child denied even a pet. His only friend -- a stuffed tiger.
Makes the "Peanuts" look like "The Family Circus".