The Calvin and Hobbes Portable Compendium Set 2 (2024)

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In my review of set one of the Calvin and Hobbes Portable Compendium releases (the first of seven planned sets, mind you) I gave a brief history of how Bill Watterson would create one of the most beloved comic strips of all-time, in such a short time, only to become exhausted by its creation and the demands of an industry that wanted more from him. He would only return to the form sporadically for charitable reasons or (with John Kascht) for experimental books like last year’s The Mysteries.

While I’d love to pad the word count of this review for The Calvin and Hobbes Portable Compendium Set 2, the second of seven planned sets from Andrews McMeel, I’ll just say it’s recommended reading for anyone unfamiliar with the drama that would eventually lead to Watterson concluding the comic’s run after just a decade, and helping close out what many felt was the medium’s last golden age.

Once again we have both daily and Sunday strips shrunken to a 9” x 6” format the publisher calls “backpack friendly”, yet still highly collectible. When it comes to comic strips, especially this one, bigger is always better, but you can’t argue with the razor-sharp reproductions of the artwork and paper quality here. Included in set 2 are two volumes packing nearly 500 comics that were originally published between March 1987 to July 1988, marking just three years of Calvin and Hobbes in our lives.

Most of the strips included were first published in 1989’s “Yukon Ho!” and 1990’s “Weirdos from Another Planet!”, but these mini collections aren’t reproductions of them. Gone is the opening poem “The Yukon Song” (meaning those unaware will be missing out on stanzas like: We’ll never have to clean a plate, Of veggie glops and goos. Messily we’ll masticate, Using any fork we choose!), as are the interstitial artwork Watterson peppered throughout the original books.

What works really works, and it’s hard to argue that many of C&H’s most famous recurring themes are less the equal of Charlie Brown’s football failures or Snoopy’s Red Baron. We get to experience the gamut of a child’s imagination and how he filters the world through his own lens, including disastrous camping trips, tiger pouncing, snowmen sculptures, philosophical wagon rides, and so many, many dinosaurs. How many kids learned what “psychiatric help” was because of Lucy? Or “transmogrify” because of Calvin?

We see Watterson still figuring out the strip’s strengths, refining the formula by cutting back on cheap gags and even characters, including one-offs like Calvin’s substitute teacher or uncle Max. We even see his pessimism regarding his own industry, and the culture at large, begin to creep in. Given the growing complexity of the Sunday strips it’s wild to see how confined and restricted many feel when compared to later versions; Watterson was operating on an entirely different level than his peers, and fighting the good fight.

Even with their smaller size and lack of original goodies, it’s hard to find to dislike in any decent Calvin and Hobbes collection because, well, it’s still Calvin and Hobbes, easily one of (and for many) the best comic strips of all-time. The Calvin and Hobbes Portable Compendium Set 2 may be the easiest and most economical way for those who grew up worshiping at the altar of Bill Watterson to re-experience these comics all over again or share them with their own little Calvins and Susies. It’s a magical world, after all, even in miniature.