sunday comic

picked up a great book this week, Calvin and Hobbes Sunday Pages 1985-1995: An Exhibition Catalogue by Bill Watterson. unlike most calvin and hobbes collections I’ve seen, this one has the original artwork by bill Watterson on the left page, and the finished, colored published piece on the right page. so, it allows you direct comparison between his black and white, with white out errors, to what he envisioned it to be, colored. it also has his inside comments on every strip!

undoubtedly, it inspired me for this week’s strip, to make it a full sunday strip. mine is inspired by july 5, 1987, a sunday strip depicting calvin as spaceman spiff. little tidbits of info I found interesting, the first row are meant to be throwaways by newspaper publishers. i guess some newspapers reserve the right to throw out that first row of panels and thus, your strip has to work even without that first couple panels. and it used to be (still is?) that there were some panel placements that were required by the publisher. that way they could break up the strip to make it fit the newspaper’s format. bill watterson eventually was able to break this requirement, and hence, we’re lucky enough to have some great storytelling and artwork!

hope you enjoy, Johnny
(click to enlarge)