There's treasure everywhere!

May 1, 2010 11:52 AM

Every single Calvin and Hobbes strip ever made, ever, all in a slick AJAX interface with instant full-text dialog search. Highlights: Stupendous Man - Spaceman Spiff - Tracer Bullet - The Thinking Cap - The Transmogrifier (and the Transmogrifier Gun) - The Duplicator (and the Ethicator) - The Wagon - Calvinball - The Get Rid of Slimy Girls Club - Procrastination - Camping - Valentine's Day - Leaf Collecting - The Haircut - Rosalyn - Summertime - Wordless (search for "No text" to find others) - Smock Smock Smock - Not to mention all those snowmen.

Viewing tips: Use the left and right arrow keys or the space bar to move from one strip to another. Clicking the left or right side of a strip works, too. Use Page Up or Page Down to skip forward or back a week at a time (useful for viewing those gorgeous Sunday strips). After searching for text, move forward or backward to browse the search results; delete your search terms to reset. You can also tweak the number after the # in the URL (in YYYYMMDD format) to jump to a specific date; for instance, #19920405 is April 5th, 1992. You might have to reload the page, depending on your browser.

All images are courtesy of UClick.com/GoComics.com, the official web distribution arm of the Universal Press Syndicate (which Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson infamously struggled with for creative control over the strip's licensing and formatting). The entire series has already been made available for free via the syndicate's website along with email subscriptions, tag search, RSS feeds, and even Twitter updates for it and other popular strips, but the interface here makes navigating this archive a true pleasure. Kudos to site owner and superfan S. Anand for not only creating this exceptional tool (and without making a dime off of it), but for hand-typing the dialog transcriptions that make the search feature possible.

posted by Rhaomi (71 comments total)

Whoa. Goodbye Saturday!
posted by HotToddy at 11:55 AM on May 1, 2010

Goddammit, no. What were you thinking? I love that site and you are not helping it stay up.
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:57 AM on May 1, 2010 [12 favorites]

It's kind of a shame how low-res the comics are, especially as Watterson was always lamenting the tiny space that his comics occupied in most papers, even on Sundays. Do yourself a favor and get the complete collection.
posted by zsazsa at 11:59 AM on May 1, 2010 [12 favorites]

Much as I love C&H, I can't help but think this is a little dodgy. Yes, the content is from UPS, but if you wrote some scripts to pull stories off the New York Times and presented them on your web site with a different interface, I think you'd get into trouble.

Unless he has explicit permission of course, in which case: Hooray.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 12:01 PM on May 1, 2010

Oooh. This might need to replace the site I've been using to search the series. It also has full transcriptions, but doesn't have the slick interface- all the strips actually load at the top of the page, which means you have to scroll all the way after clicking on a specific comic. Still, it might be nice in case S. Anand gets slashdotted/metafiltered/interneted.
posted by niles at 12:02 PM on May 1, 2010

Why did you have to link this? If you FPP good things like this, they get taken down.
posted by dunkadunc at 12:07 PM on May 1, 2010

Unless he has explicit permission of course, in which case: Hooray.

Doubtful. The most he probably has is implied, verbal consent...but even then is a stretch.
posted by inturnaround at 12:08 PM on May 1, 2010

"Calvinball" has kind of entered the lexicon at this point. When was the last time a concept from a newspaper comic has been adopted by the mainstream like that? It seems like comics pages are completely irrelevant now.
posted by empath at 12:10 PM on May 1, 2010

Yeah, he's just hotlinking the images.
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:12 PM on May 1, 2010

I love the internet.
posted by _dario at 12:15 PM on May 1, 2010

I mean, don't get me wrong; I love that site, and I love searchable Calvin and Hobbes, and Rhaomi's obvious passion for and pleasure in Calvin and Hobbes is awesome. I just don't want that site to go away, and I'm afraid that getting linked on Metafilter isn't conducive to that.
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:19 PM on May 1, 2010

"Calvinball" has kind of entered the lexicon at this point. When was the last time a concept from a newspaper comic has been adopted by the mainstream like that?

My favorite is "Thagomizer."
posted by EarBucket at 12:29 PM on May 1, 2010 [13 favorites]

I can't help thinking that if you really love Calvin and Hobbes, you ought to pay for the books (as recommended by zsazsa above). I own them all and they are a delight. This feels mildly sketchy to me, and given Bill Watterson's history concerning distribution of his work, I don't imagine he would fully approve of this site. And really, why should he?
posted by Go Banana at 12:41 PM on May 1, 2010 [2 favorites]

I got all sad again.
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 12:45 PM on May 1, 2010 [2 favorites]

But... I did pay for all of the books. I can't search them though.
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:45 PM on May 1, 2010 [8 favorites]

I wouldn't have known about this great site if it hadn't just been linked. So nuts to all you secret society types.

I don't think I'd ever realized that there isn't a single mention of video games in all of C&H.
posted by painquale at 12:46 PM on May 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

I also own his entire oeuvre (most of it in the original, some of it in translation) and yes it feels a bit sketchy. Then again, I love having the whole thing conveniently available to me on the screen.
posted by Dumsnill at 12:47 PM on May 1, 2010

Or, you know, what the pope said.
posted by Dumsnill at 12:48 PM on May 1, 2010

When was the last time a concept from a newspaper comic has been adopted by the mainstream like that?

Pretty much everything from Dilbert.
posted by b1tr0t at 1:06 PM on May 1, 2010

I could be wrong, but I think the general consensus in the IP owners world is that your physical copy allows you the rights to see it in paper form. They would prefer that you bought the above Amazon hardcopy even though you may already possess individual books that encompass all of his work. They would also prefer that you would ignore the 11 bad reviews that talk about the physical quality of the complete works.

To ethically view it on a computer screen, you should give someone else money (or read their ads), and in the future you would purchase an electronic copy of the complete works (perhaps for 40$?). Purchase is a strong word. License is a better (more accurate word). They would also remind you that once the license changes it may be the only ethical course would be to purchase a different electronic copy.

Waterson? I'm not sure how his finances are doing these days, but if he wanted to fully monetize his IP, he'd be much richer long ago (and half of metafilter would have licensed Calvin mugs they drank their crappy work coffee from).
posted by el io at 1:11 PM on May 1, 2010

So we're getting ready to move across the country in a couple of months. Today we started to go through the library and sort out what we really feel we have to take with us versus what we just kinda… had.

There were at least one and a half full sets of the C&H books. And maybe it's a generational touchstone for me - it was certainly one of the last strips in the paper I looked forwards to reading - but it ended up on the "we don't need this any more" pile. I didn't even feel like I was disconnecting from something that was a sacred part of me.
posted by egypturnash at 1:29 PM on May 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite .
posted by krautland at 1:37 PM on May 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

Much as I love C&H, I can't help but think this is a little dodgy. Yes, the content is from UPS, but if you wrote some scripts to pull stories off the New York Times and presented them on your web site with a different interface, I think you'd get into trouble.

Unless he has explicit permission of course, in which case: Hooray.

It's a lot dodgy. Waterson doesn't condone any reproductions of any Calvin anything other than the official books, period. Go buy them.
posted by Devils Rancher at 1:41 PM on May 1, 2010 [6 favorites]

Unfavorited, for the above reasons. I kind of feel bad for whoever spent all this time on it, but it is almost certainly not permissible, and against the creator's interests and expressed wishes.

It's kind of interesting that we see objections along these lines only when people really like the creator and his/her vision of his/her property. Because ordinarily I don't we'd be seeing anything like this dodginess protest.
posted by Clyde Mnestra at 2:17 PM on May 1, 2010 [2 favorites]

It's kind of funny that we're talking about a strip that hasn't run in 15 years, that was primarily featured on soon-to-be-obsolete newspapers, and doesn't have a single computer in it.
posted by meowzilla at 2:21 PM on May 1, 2010

Just wait until meowzilla discovers that some people talk about things that were written 150 years ago, that were primarily disseminated in big thick piles of paper, and didn't even have cars.
posted by kenko at 2:26 PM on May 1, 2010 [11 favorites]

Devils Rancher: "Waterson doesn't condone any reproductions of any Calvin anything other than the official books, period. Go buy them."

Is this really accurate? I understand Watterson hated unauthorized re-use of his work, such as knock-off merchandise or those bumper stickers showing Calvin praying to a cross (or pissing on things). Those things either profited off of/commercialized his work or perverted its message.

But everything on this site is unaltered and directly from the syndicate, the same syndicate that publishes those book collections. If he's okay with them publishing books, why would he not be okay with publishing them online? Nothing I've read about the guy suggests he'd have a problem with something like this, especially if it's being done purely to share the series with new audiences instead of to make money off of it.
posted by Rhaomi at 2:32 PM on May 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

To ethically view it on a computer screen, you should give someone else money (or read their ads), and in the future you would purchase an electronic copy of the complete works (perhaps for 40$?). Purchase is a strong word. License is a better (more accurate word). They would also remind you that once the license changes it may be the only ethical course would be to purchase a different electronic copy.

But, but, but..... CORY!
posted by Ratio at 3:00 PM on May 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

If Bill Watterson finds out, we can all just sing the Very Sorry Song.
posted by duvatney at 3:18 PM on May 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

So, the creator has a complete say in how I enjoy the created? If George Lucas said that he only wanted you to watch his crappy "re-release" movies on dvd, would you really throw out your VHS tapes and never watch the originals again even though you have them? Is it unethical to rip a CD that you own of Jim Morrison and listen to it on your i-phone? Jim Morrison never gave permission for that right?
posted by Megafly at 3:22 PM on May 1, 2010 [3 favorites]

I'm seconding buying the complete collection. The quality is superb, and it's definitely a worthwhile one-time investment.

However, I love the AJAX search here.
posted by archagon at 3:36 PM on May 1, 2010

Yeah, this will soon go the way of HTMLComics.com and come to think of it my own long-lost Dilbert filter. Enjoy it while it lasts!
posted by nicwolff at 3:41 PM on May 1, 2010

ethics discussion aside, my first search was "girls". i love the strips where suzie shows up.
posted by TrialByMedia at 3:47 PM on May 1, 2010

So, the creator has a complete say in how I enjoy the created?

fuck yeah this conversation

also your post is invalid simply because it compares the creator of hobbes to the creator of jar-jar binks.
posted by Mikey-San at 3:58 PM on May 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

You know what? Watterson can definitely have a say in how I "enjoy his creations". Lucas can't, because I don't like him or his creations, but Watterson I admire and respect and that means his wishes count for a whole lot more with me.

So much more that I saw this link and went "woah, top!", then checked the URL and thought "oh, god, what a pity".

And I looked, and I saw that it was Not Good.
posted by bonaldi at 4:17 PM on May 1, 2010

Is this really accurate? I understand Watterson hated unauthorized re-use of his work, such as knock-off merchandise or those bumper stickers showing Calvin praying to a cross (or pissing on things). Those things either profited off of/commercialized his work or perverted its message.

It's accurate. A few of these sites have come an gone over the years --I don't know Bill Waterson but I've known his younger brother since the early 80's when our bands played gigs together and we worked at the same restaurant -- I think I have a grasp on his attitude towards unauthorized use. I couldn't tell you specifically why these images are findable in newspaper archives online -- he might not have good control over how AP disseminated his work once he'd licensed/sold it to them. I don't really know the terms of that. I have seen a couple of these sites get taken down, though. He spends an inordinate amount of his life fighting copyright & cease and desist battles.

He's adamantly dead-set against merchandizing of any sort, as he feels it dilutes the integrity of his art -- but that's common knowledge, probably available in interviews, since he gets asked about it. He quit drawing the strip when he felt like it was done, and that's that. All the collections on the web are unauthorized -- the only way to obtain authorized versions of his strips at this point, other than going to the library and reading them in newspaper archives, is to buy his books. Period. Sorry to belabor this, as I love me some Calvin and Hobbes, and have availed myself of reading it online a few times even, and I know we're not all rich enough to just run out & buy the complete works, or this wouldn't come up as an issue.
posted by Devils Rancher at 4:18 PM on May 1, 2010 [4 favorites]

So hot-linking is terrible except when it makes things more convenient for us! Thanks, Metafilter.
posted by Justinian at 4:19 PM on May 1, 2010 [2 favorites]

Heh. Typo. Never noticed that before.
posted by Leon at 4:53 PM on May 1, 2010

There are grades due on Monday and you post this today?

Do you want me students to kill the both of us?
posted by oddman at 5:09 PM on May 1, 2010

The reason why this is kinda sucko if he didn't authorize it that a bunch of people will read it and not buy his books, and thus his work will lose profitability. I love CandH too much to want the still-living author to suffer a loss because of a devoted fan.

Appreciate the wanting to share the love, though. I guess the fan will get a C&D letter because of this post, and the universe will return to its state of balance.
posted by angrycat at 5:38 PM on May 1, 2010

Bleh.

We love Bill Watterson, right? And he's made it very clear that he doesn't like unauthorized use of his comics, right? And this is not an authorized site, right?

So why are we doing this? It's not like we have the slightest excuse for disrespecting Mr. Watterson's wishes, since he's shown definitively that he values artistic integrity far more than money.

I won't even click on this. Steal from someone I don't like.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 5:40 PM on May 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

previously
posted by First Post at 6:07 PM on May 1, 2010

> So hot-linking is terrible except when it makes things more convenient for us! Thanks, Metafilter.

No, no, hotlinking isn't terrible here because otherwise the guy who coded up this awesome interface could be charged with copyright infringement. This way, he's just pointing to files that are already up legally for free.
posted by JDHarper at 6:34 PM on May 1, 2010

I own every calvin and hobbes strip, actually redundant copies of several of them. Can I use this site without getting moralized at?
posted by tehloki at 6:39 PM on May 1, 2010 [10 favorites]

I could be wrong, but I think the general consensus in the IP owners world is that your physical copy allows you the rights to see it in paper form.

General consensus in the fox world is that coops are obsolete.
posted by DU at 6:41 PM on May 1, 2010 [5 favorites]

I'm really not understanding some of the grar here. It's not like the dude scanned all the comics out of a book and put them online, like some of these older sites did. They're already online, thanks to the syndicate, whose site not only makes the whole series freely available but encourages emailing the strips to friends, posting them to Digg/Facebook/StumbleUpon, putting them on your homepage with a Google gadget, etc.

All this Anand guy did was code an interface that made it easier to search and browse through all of the strips already posted online by the syndicate. Everything you can see and do on his site, including search, you can already do on the official Calvin and Hobbes site. The format is just clunkier.

If you think the very fact that these strips are online at all is a violation of Watterson's wishes, well, that's just bizarre. True, the book collections were the only "authorized" source for his work, but that was only so that there wouldn't be any official T-shirts, toys, or calendars. Watterson felt merchandising cheapened earnest characters and allowed them to be co-opted by a commercial message that distilled them into caricatures. He wanted his work to stand on its own -- in the books -- and not be further commercialized or re-used for any other purpose. But that doesn't necessarily mean he wanted his work to be available through the books only. It's just that, at the time, the books were the only logical way to publish his work once the newspaper strip ended.

Now if the syndicate, which is far more business-minded than Watterson ever was, is OK with posting the strips online, why wouldn't Watterson be? Just like the books, it presents his work unaltered. It doesn't dilute his message or repurpose it. It just shows them in another medium, a much more useful medium available to a much wider audience.

In one of the book collections, Watterson wrote:

The challenge of any cartoonist is not just to duplicate the achievements of the past, but to build on them as well. Comic strips have a short history, but their traditions are important. Cartoonists learn about cartooning by reading cartoons. Unfortunately, the history of comics is not very accessible. Popular strips were not regularly collected in books until very recently. Peanuts and Pogo collections are often difficult to find and are increasingly expensive. Krazy Kat still has not been adequately published in book form. It has only been in the last few years that I've seen any extended runs of the true classics of the medium. Early strips are amazing - some are far more inventive than today's - but they can't educate future cartoonists if they're not collected and republished. Sometimes I wonder what strips would be like if every generation didn't have to reinvent the wheel.

The internet makes comics far more accessible and at a lesser costs than book collections do. I can't imagine Watterson would be against that, especially not because it's not as profitable. In fact, I think he would prefer a spare, minimalist interface like Anand's than the hyper-commodified and Web 2.0-tastic syndicate site. The former hews much more closely to the style of the book collections, IMHO.
posted by Rhaomi at 7:15 PM on May 1, 2010 [15 favorites]

So, the creator has a complete say in how I enjoy the created? If George Lucas said that he only wanted you to watch his crappy "re-release" movies on dvd, would you really throw out your VHS tapes and never watch the originals again even though you have them? Is it unethical to rip a CD that you own of Jim Morrison and listen to it on your i-phone? Jim Morrison never gave permission for that right?

Umm, the fact that you don't grasp the distinction between these cases isn't a terribly good sign. But a general guideline for future use is that it's very hard to reclaim intellectual property rights that have been exhausted by a sale, and trying to retroactively extinguish old (non-upgradeable) works in favor of new ones would be ballsy -- but that transferring a work to new media is different.

I own every calvin and hobbes strip, actually redundant copies of several of them. Can I use this site without getting moralized at?

Empirically, the answer is no. Legally, the answer is that it doesn't fundamentally matter. Ethically, it's interesting that you'd make a distinction based on your sense that you had tossed enough money at the strips, or perhaps that you earned this right only by exhausting your capability of buying more books; don't know why this reasoning doesn't permit you to put C&H on your shirts and on the hood of your car. Personally, the answer is that you should consider diversifying your interests.
posted by Clyde Mnestra at 7:17 PM on May 1, 2010

General consensus in the fox world is that coops are obsolete.

This point of view I entirely understand, and I don't mean that in a good way.

Now if the syndicate, which is far more business-minded than Watterson ever was, is OK with posting the strips online, why wouldn't Watterson be? Just like the books, it presents his work unaltered. It doesn't dilute his message or repurpose it. It just shows them in another medium, a much more useful medium available to a much wider audience.

I'm just uncertain as to Watterson, and maybe he would totally be on board with this. If you're looking for speculation, I am not sure he'd be into the display quality, which some cartoonists have been pretty agitated about.
posted by Clyde Mnestra at 7:22 PM on May 1, 2010

I'm really not understanding some of the grar here. It's not like the dude scanned all the comics out of a book and put them online, like some of these older sites did. They're already online, thanks to the syndicate, whose site not only makes the whole series freely available but encourages emailing the strips to friends, posting them to Digg/Facebook/StumbleUpon, putting them on your homepage with a Google gadget, etc.

I'd be ok with this kind of thing if the advertising that allows the website to pay the original creator royalties was also copied over. But it doesn't, so it screws the artist out of his fair share, so it's the work of someone misguided and qualifies as thievery to me. Feel free to decide otherwise, but I don't see how you can rationalize your way around the artist not getting the pay he deserves.
posted by swimming naked when the tide goes out at 7:33 PM on May 1, 2010

Can we all please stop saying "grar" now?
posted by Poet_Lariat at 7:42 PM on May 1, 2010 [2 favorites]

No, no, hotlinking isn't terrible here because otherwise the guy who coded up this awesome interface could be charged with copyright infringement. This way, he's just pointing to files that are already up legally for free.

Except he doesn't link to the ads as well. The strips aren't online out of the goodness of Watterson and his publisher's hearts.
posted by Justinian at 7:43 PM on May 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

swimming naked when the tide goes out: "I'd be ok with this kind of thing if the advertising that allows the website to pay the original creator royalties was also copied over. But it doesn't, so it screws the artist out of his fair share, so it's the work of someone misguided and qualifies as thievery to me."

Justinian: "Except he doesn't link to the ads as well. The strips aren't online out of the goodness of Watterson and his publisher's hearts."

The syndicate offers ways to share the comic that don't include the advertising, including the widget I mentioned and the ability to embed strips in other sites (like so -- I can't use the IMG tag, but embedding works on sites that support it). When you do that, they'll sometimes add a footer that promotes GoComics.com, so they must know people are embedding.

If they wanted to block sharing of the comic this way, they could do it easily, but they don't. They evidently would rather use extensive sharing of the strip to promote their comics portal.
posted by Rhaomi at 8:05 PM on May 1, 2010

Now if the syndicate, which is far more business-minded than Watterson ever was,

Bzzt! Who says Watterson's desire to control how his work is disseminated is business-related?
posted by kenko at 8:48 PM on May 1, 2010

So those who visit the official site and who regularly use Adblock disable it?
posted by juiceCake at 9:15 PM on May 1, 2010

This is about the only venue where I come out on the side of IP rights, relatively speaking. But I wonder whether everyone so impressed with technological workarounds, and the failure of the syndicate to block them, feels the same way when thinking about scanners and copiers -- whether their availability means that all bets were off when it came to copying a book, or whether that would be okay if publisher failed to adopt some technique frustrating copying at least to a limited degree (e.g., changing the contrast b/w type and page). I'm sure there are limits to the analogy, but I guess I'm trying to test how much we should care about the henhouse issue mentioned earlier.
posted by Clyde Mnestra at 9:25 PM on May 1, 2010

Metafilter: Heh. Typo from fifteen years ago. Never noticed that before.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 6:30 AM on May 2, 2010

When you do that, they'll sometimes add a footer that promotes GoComics.com, so they must know people are embedding.

...which qualifies as the "copying over the advertising" I mentioned, so therefore much more reasonable.
posted by swimming naked when the tide goes out at 9:33 AM on May 2, 2010

In one of the book collections, Watterson wrote:

The challenge of any cartoonist is not just to duplicate the achievements of the past, but to build on them as well. Comic strips have a short history, but their traditions are important. Cartoonists learn about cartooning by reading cartoons. Unfortunately, the history of comics is not very accessible. Popular strips were not regularly collected in books until very recently. Peanuts and Pogo collections are often difficult to find and are increasingly expensive. Krazy Kat still has not been adequately published in book form. It has only been in the last few years that I've seen any extended runs of the true classics of the medium. Early strips are amazing - some are far more inventive than today's - but they can't educate future cartoonists if they're not collected and republished. Sometimes I wonder what strips would be like if every generation didn't have to reinvent the wheel.

Quoting this as if it shows that Watterson would approve of this website is a bit disingenuous. There's no indication that Watterson was talking about anything other than normal book collections of comic stripes in that quote.
posted by Jaltcoh at 10:03 AM on May 2, 2010

Strips, comic strips, not stripes... (I must have been thinking of Hobbes.)
posted by Jaltcoh at 10:04 AM on May 2, 2010 [1 favorite]

Cf. All Your Base Are Belong to Calvin & Hobbes.
posted by joeclark at 2:02 PM on May 2, 2010

The irony that we're doing this over Calvin and Hobbes.

One day, Metafilter threads are going to be nothing but "GRAR GRAR GRAR", repeated over and over and over again. The site isn't scaling well.
posted by dunkadunc at 5:03 PM on May 2, 2010

It's kind of funny that we're talking about a strip that hasn't run in 15 years, that was primarily featured on soon-to-be-obsolete newspapers, and doesn't have a single computer in it.

There's actually one with a computer in it! Neat!
posted by breath at 8:09 PM on May 2, 2010

Jaltcoh: Raomi was making an argument in support of the idea that Waterson would approve of this website. To this end, Raomi quoted Waterson for evidence. This is a reasonable and honest thing to do. It might be dishonest to say, "Waterson approves of this," but Raomi didn't say that, only that Waterson probably would approve.
posted by LogicalDash at 8:58 PM on May 2, 2010

Aw:

Site taken down.

Such a pity...
posted by MrHappyGoLucky at 1:22 PM on May 3, 2010

Watterson approved so hard that he broke the site.
posted by shakespeherian at 1:31 PM on May 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

It's working for me, albeit with a link to the book collections in the footer.
posted by Rhaomi at 2:45 PM on May 3, 2010

All I get is "site taken down. Such a pity..."

Yep. It very much is.
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:47 PM on May 3, 2010

True, the book collections were the only "authorized" source for his work, but that was only so that there wouldn't be any official T-shirts, toys, or calendars.

There were two official 16-month calendars, 1988-1989 and 1989-1990. They reprinted a Sunday strip for each month.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 4:11 PM on May 3, 2010

Hrm, it still loads in Chrome but in Firefox I get the "Such a pity" message.

I saved a copy of the cached page, MeMail me if you'd like a copy.
posted by dunkadunc at 5:07 PM on May 3, 2010

(eh, the saved copy doesn't work. so much for my l33t tricks.)
posted by dunkadunc at 5:16 PM on May 3, 2010

Creator's tweet indicating notice of infringement received.
posted by WCityMike at 2:17 AM on May 4, 2010