The author examines the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip which is about a boy and his stuffed tiger best friend.

A Calvin and Hobbes collection.

"In cooperation with the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, The Ohio State University Libraries."

A fascinating investigation of a beloved comic strip The internet is home to impassioned debates on just about everything, but there’s one thing that’s universally beloved: Bill Watterson’s comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. Until its retirement in 1995 after a ten-year run, the strip won numerous awards and drew tens of millions of readers from all around the world. The story of a boy and his best friend — a stuffed tiger — was a pitch-perfect distillation of the joys and horrors of childhood, and a celebration of imagination in its purest form. In Let’s Go Exploring, Michael Hingston mines the strip and traces the story of Calvin’s reclusive creator to demonstrate how imagination — its possibilities, its opportunities, and ultimately its limitations — helped make Calvin and Hobbes North America’s last great comic strip.

An affectionate and revealing book about uncovering the story behind this most uncommon trio – a man, a boy and his tiger.

A collection of comic strips following the adventures of Calvin and his stuffed tiger Hobbes.

From 1985 to 1995, the syndicated comic strip Calvin and Hobbes followed the antics of a precocious six-year-old boy and his sardonic stuffed tiger. At the height of its popularity, the strip ran in more than 2,400 newspapers and generated a fan base that continues to run in the millions. This critical analysis of Calvin and Hobbes explores Calvin's world and its deep reservoir of meanings. Close readings of individual strips highlight the profundity of Calvin's world with respect to a number of life's big questions, including the things that one values, friendship, God, death, and other struggles in life. By engaging with Calvin and Hobbes as more than "just" a comic strip, this work demonstrates how the imagination remains an invaluable resource for making sense of the world. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

A retrospective of ten years of strips with comments by the author.

Four volume set spanning years 1985 to 1995.

Seventeen-year-old Calvin has always known his fate is linked to the comic book character from Calvin & Hobbes. He was born on the day the last strip was published; his grandpa left a stuffed tiger named Hobbes in his crib; and he even has a best friend named Susie. As a child Calvin played with the toy Hobbes, controlling his every word and action, until Hobbes was washed to death. But now Calvin is a teenager who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, Hobbes is back—as a delusion—and Calvin can't control him. Calvin decides that if he can convince Bill Watterson to draw one final comic strip, showing a normal teenaged Calvin, he will be cured. Calvin and Susie (and Hobbes) set out on a dangerous trek across frozen Lake Erie to track him down.