Weirdos from Another Planet!

Calvin is a six-year-old with an imagination that never switches off, and his stuffed tiger Hobbes goes along with nearly all of it. This collection of comic strips runs from February to December 1988, with black-and-white dailies and full-color Sunday pages.

Calvin starts the G.R.O.S.S. Club, a society built to torment his neighbor Susie. He also pilots spaceships as Spaceman Spiff and plays the hard-boiled detective Tracer Bullet, two alter-egos he uses to get through the boredom of an ordinary day.

The strips range from desert island scenarios and mutant snowmen to nights of stargazing with Hobbes. School, chores and consumerism get satirical treatment, and some pages turn to bigger questions about life.

The book also carries the first long story arcs in the strip, where several strips link into one continuous tale. Reading it means short, quick gags mixed with wordplay, mischief and the odd quiet moment between a boy and his tiger.