Essentially Calvin and Hobbes
This book captures my attempt to learn to draw cartoons by redrawing all 255 pages of Bill Watterson’s The Essential Calvin and Hobbes.
My Calvin and Hobbes Treasury
265 pages
February 2024
Download as:
EPUB 315 Mb (for ebook reader apps)
lo-res PDF 102 Mb
hi-res PDF 360 Mb
The book includes all the Calvin drawings I ever attempted (as of January 17, 2024).
Plus I added an appendix at the end with lots of nerdy graphs and a Q&A about the project.
The inspiration came as I began to learn to draw again, but after a month I started to get bored with the exercises I had found.
That’s when I remembered that I have many Calvin and Hobbes books, and they could be my exercises.
I wasn’t sure I would be able to redraw the whole book or how long it would take when I first started, nor did I know if this was really a smart approach to use to learn to draw.
I didn’t really care, though, as from the start, drawing each cartoon gave me the opportunity to relive my favorite comic strip and get to know it in much more depth than ever before.
In the end, I finished drawing the 18 months and 6 days of comics included in the book in exactly 18 months and 6 days, which just felt right.
Then I had to draw all the full page extra material and covers, which took another month.
Then I realized the original book has an unusual font, so I had to learn how to create my own font (notice the curly S).
Then I had to write my own Foreword, because Charles M. Shultz, who wrote the original Foreword, was not available.
Then I had to write my own ISBN page.
Then I had to learn how to create a book (which required modifying all the image file formats and all 265 pages individually multiple times). I created my other books using Lightroom and Blurb, which handles most of the difficult work.
In other words, BEST project EVER!
Drawing a Sunday Page
22 min - June 2023
Above is a time lapse video of me drawing one of the pages of the book. It took me 9 hours to complete the drawing, but the video collapses that to 22 minutes.
To be honest, this is probably more than you need to see, but it was fun for me to watch myself draw faster than I ever could in reality.
The Printed Book
And here it is, the original and my version, side-by-side.
I printed exactly one copy, just for myself.
If it’s not already obvious, of course, like the rest of my books, it’s not for sale.
1 min - February 2024