On Nov. 18, 1985, a new comic strip made its newspaper debut: Calvin and Hobbes. It featured a small boy wearing a pith helmet who announced that day that he was going to check his tiger trap. The boy was Calvin and the tiger snared in the last panel -- happily snacking on the bait -- was Hobbes.
For 10 years the duo captured the imaginations of adults and children alike. Then, in 1995, cartoonist Bill Watterson announced his retirement at the age of 37.
Now the definitive Calvin and Hobbes collection has been released. The three-volume set is fittingly called The Complete Calvin and Hobbes. It features every one of the 3,160 strips Watterson produced between 1985 and Dec. 31, 1995.

[ These are gorgeous volumes, I think. The paper has reasonable heft, and they did a clever thing with the coloring that makes it look as if the strips had been carefully cut from a white page and glued, scrapbook style, onto an off white sheet. If i didn't already own every single Calvin and Hobbes book ever published, I'd buy it in a heartbeat. Since I *do*, I'll buy it sometime later, when I can simply no longer resist. -k]

NPR : Spiffy: 'The Complete Calvin and Hobbes'