Teaching (and Collecting) with Calvin and Hobbes

October 27, 2016 7:54 AM

In 1993, Bill Watterson did something he almost never did: he approved a piece of Calvin & Hobbes merchandise. No, not a T-shirt or a window sticker of his hero peeing on a Ford logo. The merch was Teaching with Calvin and Hobbes, a middle-grade reading textbook. It has become the Holy Grail of C&H collectors, with a Blogspot column that "archives information from all sources about the rare and collectible textbook". Copies are valued as high as $34,000. Eight are known to exist in libraries, half in North Dakota (where the book was published) and one in Singapore.
posted by Etrigan (24 comments total)

Owing to Bill Watterson's principled refusal to license his comic strip for merchandise in general, Teaching with Calvin and Hobbes is an exceptional item; a license was granted to the authors after they personally communicated to Watterson the success they had using his comic strip to teach children with learning disabilities.

Bill Watterson is one of my heroes.
posted by clockzero at 8:13 AM on October 27, 2016 [15 favorites]

It's a shame they apparently couldn't get Watterson to do the cover art for that book, but it is pushing weird nostalgia buttons for me as somebody who attended elementary school in the 90s. I feel like those weird noseless faces with close-set eyes and insanely curved mouths were all over early childhood education material around that time. Was all that stuff drawn by one person? Were they imitating something? Did nobody notice how creepy it looked?
posted by a mirror and an encyclopedia at 8:20 AM on October 27, 2016 [28 favorites]

I have the exact same question about that style of art.
posted by LobsterMitten at 8:31 AM on October 27, 2016

The art style on the cover particularly reminds me of the stuff my home-schooled compatriots had. It feels culturally evangelical Christian to me.

Not that I think the book has anything to do with that. But the art on the cover, yeah. I just get a sense-memory of Sunday school rooms, cheap markers and old coffee tins and metal and plastic chairs and the whiff of incense underneath it all.
posted by Scattercat at 8:33 AM on October 27, 2016 [4 favorites]

I'm with you, a mirror and encylopedia. As a youg aspiring artist, I was haunted by the way that little girl's legs jut out of the back of her head. How easy was it to get illustration gigs in the 90s? (btw, by young, I mean 7)
posted by es_de_bah at 8:34 AM on October 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

Was all that stuff drawn by one person? Were they imitating something?

The Mr. Men/Little Miss stuff (e.g. Little Miss Sunshine) used a very similar style of art for the faces so that gets us to around 1971.
posted by griphus at 8:38 AM on October 27, 2016 [3 favorites]

Related, The Calvin & Hobbes Guide to Daily Life [PDF] to what is essentially a "zine" (or "unauthorized bootleg") that reproduces a large handful of C&H cartoons with some commentary.
posted by chavenet at 8:44 AM on October 27, 2016 [3 favorites]

Were they imitating something?
They kind of look like cabbage patch kids to me. Shudder.
posted by carter at 8:44 AM on October 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

I don't think that's it. I'd say the "Have a Nice Day" smile is closer, but that particular look is very late 70s early to mid 80s.

I feel like it may have had its origin in the craft community, perhaps through variations on Raggedy Ann Dolls? I think that's where the smile face comes from.
posted by leotrotsky at 8:46 AM on October 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

Did nobody notice how creepy it looked?

one of us, one of us, one of us, one of us....
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:53 AM on October 27, 2016

I hope those North Dakota libraries are keeping a close watch on those books...
posted by clawsoon at 8:54 AM on October 27, 2016 [7 favorites]

Those books could be the basis for a slightly weird North Dakota tourism ad campaign.
posted by clawsoon at 8:55 AM on October 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

If these are just reprinted versions of existing strips, what is the appeal beyond there not being many of these?

I mean, if I was gonna hunt down a rare textbook, I'd probably go for something that might be fun to read, with some new insights, like Everybody's Shakespeare. That's the three volume textbook Orson Welles co-wrote for high schoolers on how to stage, respectively, Twelfth Night, Julius Caesar, and Merchant of Venice. He was nineteen years old when he wrote it. Reading teenage Orson Welles' stage notes sounds way more fun than having a mundane textbook with some reprinted comics in it.

< / digression>

Seriously though, did Watterson contribute anything original to it?
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:05 AM on October 27, 2016 [4 favorites]

These articles use the phrase "rare piece of officially licensed merchandise" which raised the question "are there others?" It turns out the sum total is this book, 2 calendars, and a US postage stamp.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 9:22 AM on October 27, 2016 [3 favorites]

Here's that Wells book Everybody's Shakespeare though it doesn't say anything about 3vol and it's softcover, so it may be a reprint.
posted by MovableBookLady at 9:23 AM on October 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

And here's the Watterson book Teaching with Calvin and Hobbes for only $1250.
posted by MovableBookLady at 9:27 AM on October 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

My dream piece of Calvin & Hobbes merch would be a vehicle sticker with a recursive image of Calvin pissing on Calvin pissing on Calvin pissing on Calvin pissing on Calvin....
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:28 AM on October 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

An argument can be made that Exploring Calvin & Hobbes is merch.
posted by griphus at 9:32 AM on October 27, 2016

The art style on the cover particularly reminds me of the stuff my home-schooled compatriots had. It feels culturally evangelical Christian to me. [...] Not that I think the book has anything to do with that. But the art on the cover, yeah. I just get a sense-memory of Sunday school rooms, cheap markers and old coffee tins and metal and plastic chairs and the whiff of incense underneath it all.

Incense?!! What kind of "evangelicals" did you grow up amongst who tolerated that kind of popish/pagan/New Age nonsense? ;-)
posted by non canadian guy at 9:58 AM on October 27, 2016 [3 favorites]

It feels culturally evangelical Christian to me.

It was North Dakota in 1993. Everything felt culturally evangelical Christian. Trust me.
posted by Windigo at 10:00 AM on October 27, 2016 [8 favorites]

And here's the Watterson book Teaching with Calvin and Hobbes for only $1250.

But shipping is $4 so I'm priced out.
posted by Clinging to the Wreckage at 10:45 AM on October 27, 2016 [5 favorites]

> I hope those North Dakota libraries are keeping a close watch on those books...

Yeah, my first thought was "I wonder if any of those library copies are intact?"

> If these are just reprinted versions of existing strips, what is the appeal beyond there not being many of these?

Dude. Have you ever met a collector?
posted by languagehat at 12:17 PM on October 27, 2016 [8 favorites]

Incense?!! What kind of "evangelicals" did you grow up amongst who tolerated that kind of popish/pagan/New Age nonsense? ;-)

Shared space in a real church. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
posted by Scattercat at 7:38 PM on October 27, 2016

Yeah, my first thought was "I wonder if any of those library copies are intact?"

I used to work at one of those libraries so I went and double-checked. The book is housed in Special Collections so yep, in pretty good shape. Plus Library of Congress has a copy.
posted by librarylis at 9:26 PM on October 28, 2016 [1 favorite]