This book is part of the ECW Press Pop Classics series, in which the author spends about 100 pages talking about a certain snippet of pop culture. Hingston’s discussion of Calvin and Hobbes hits the right notes. He talks about the strip’s beginnings, what makes it tick, Bill Watterson’s struggles with the syndicate, the end of the strip, and its lasting appeal to fans. The tone is affectionate and Hingston doesn’t inject himself too much into it, unlike other journalists who have made documentaries about their quest to find Bill Watterson. My favourite post-C&H story was the one involving Pearls Before Swine—after I finished reading the book, I had to go look up Stephan Pastis’s blog post to read the story all over again.

I’d send this book up in an alien space probe to help extraterrestrial beings understand one of the last universally popular comic strips. ( )