How many Calvin and Hobbes comic strips have been written?”
Calvin and Hobbes was conceived when Watterson, having worked in an advertising job he detested, began devoting his spare time to cartooning, his true love. He explored various strip ideas but all were rejected by the syndicates to which he sent them. United Feature Syndicate, however, responded positively to one strip, which featured a side character (the main character’s little brother) who had a stuffed tiger. Told that these characters were the strongest, Watterson began a new strip centered on them. But United Feature rejected the new strip, and Watterson endured a few more rejections before Universal Press Syndicate decided to take it. The first strip was published on November 18, 1985 and the series quickly became a hit. Within a year of syndication, the strip was published in roughly 250 newspapers. By April 1, 1987, only sixteen months after the strip began, Watterson and his work were featured in an article by The Los Angeles Times. Calvin and Hobbes twice earned Watterson th
That’s according to this article: http://www.andrewsmcmeel.com/calvinandhobbes/pr_calvin.html The Complete Calvin and Hobbes, published by Andrews McMeel Publishing, a division of AMU, is similar in format to the New York Times best-selling The Complete Far Side, The Complete Calvin and Hobbes collects every Bill Watterson cartoon in a three-volume slipcased set. The book includes every Watterson strip (3,160 to be exact) appearing between the cartoon’s launch on November 18, 1985, to its final run on December 31, 1995, along with new art and a revealing introduction essay by Watterson. During its syndication, Calvin and Hobbes ran in more than 2,400 newspapers. Worldwide sales of Watterson’s 17 existing Calvin and Hobbes book collections surpass 30 million copies, making Watterson’s heartwarming depiction of precocious six-year-old Calvin and his imaginary, pouncing pet tiger Hobbes unquestionably
25 Great Calvin and Hobbes Strips Why Bill Watterson is our hero compiled by Jon, Bill and Nick – September 7, 2004 Hundreds of comic strips have been published in newspapers. The majority are terrible, and almost all the rest are mediocre. There have been maybe four or five good comic strips in the history of the world. So saying that Calvin and Hobbes is the best comic strip ever doesn’t really hold a lot of weight. And it’s really a shame that it’s so difficult to quantify this strip’s greatness. I can confidently state that Calvin and Hobbes outclasses the rest of the comic strip world more than anything else has ever outclassed the rest of its medium. Sans this strip, the industry is characterized by guys sitting on rocks making stupid puns, a Family Circus kid misunderstanding the meaning of a word, or an overweight father playing golf while telling jokes such as I LIKE GOLF and GOLF IS HARD. It’s a medium that doesn’t really deserve something as good as Calvin and Hobbes, but it
