So This Is Christmas and What Have You Gotten for Yourself?

By now you're either finished with holiday shopping, done with the very idea of holiday shopping or loading up on Mentos, beef jerky, windshield wiper fluid and whatever last-minute gifts you can pick up at gas staions between your home and your holiday destination. But there's probably one person you forgot to put on your shopping list. One person who really, truly deserves to get something nice this season. I'm talking about you, my friend. You. So with that in mind we present the official Drink at Work.com Comic Anthology Buying Guide, in the hopes that once the madness is over, you'll find some time to pick yourself up one of the following treasures...uh, treasuries...you get the idea:

Given the enormity of its price, The Complete Calvin and Hobbes is less a nice, little purchase for oneself and more like something in lieu of setting up your own hedge fund. But few cartoonists deserve such a deluxe treatment (Gary Larson's The Complete Far Side being a notable exception), and few modern comic strips merit being preserved like exquisite lithographs. From Calvin first capturing Hobbes with a tuna-sandwich trap to the site of the tiger 'n tyke walking across a snowy plain and off into our collective memory, this collection is ideal for adults, for children and--given its sheer size--for propping up askew buildings.

Two of the best Christmas gifts I ever received--aside from the Atari VCS--were the original Peanuts Treasury and Peanuts Classics. In fact, I use those very books to this day as reference material when drawing Peanuts parodies for Medium Large. Furthermore, I am at this very moment looking at the inscription from the end sheet of one of those books, which reads "To Francesco, from Mommy and Daddy, Christmas 1977" (an inscription that smacks of more formality than one would deem necessary for the occasion or even typical of my parents). Now children--by which I mean anyone between the age of zero and death--can experience that same joy with The Complete Peanuts Collections 1950-1954 and 1955-1958 boxed sets. These collections are not only for people who love cartooning but also for those who long to be cartoonists, my tragic career being a prime example. For you see, along with my dad, Charles M. Schulz was the very reason I became interested, then obsessed and then professionally crippled by comic strips in the first place. Had it not been for his illness, I could have actually, finally met the man-god at the official Birthday bash for Mort Walker back in 1999, but alas his illness prevented him from attending (and people, believe me, you have never truly partied until you tried to erase the memory of a Mort Walker birthday bash by escaping the gathering and immediately getting shit-faced at a nearby bar). Memories aside, I implore you to do yourself a big favor, buy these collections, start with page one, book one and marvel as Charlie Brown evolves from a rather puckish tot to his more recognizably doleful self, Lucy goes from being a baby to a brat to another b-word and Pigpen somehow never becomes a ward of the state.

It appears that long before Dennis became best known for spouting such soporific aphorisms as "Eat candy in moderation" and "Dirt plus water equals mud" he was what child psychiatrists would have called pre-T. Berry Brazelton days "a real psychotic, little prick." Such is the bracing news ones learns from Hank Ketchum's Complete Dennis the Menace 1951-1952. Within these very pages you'll discover a child who is just a lit match away from commiting major arson, you'll see childish acts that would nowdays require immediate police intervention, and you'll understand why Hank Ketchum and his real-life son Dennis were never again on speaking terms following the immense popularity of this strip.

David Malki! signs his name with an exclamation point and well he should, for his remarkable webcomic Wondermark must be praised at the top of one's lungs. And equally thunderous admiration should be heaped upon The Annotated Wondermark, an anthology that proudly proclaims it is "Now 96% opium-free." Inside you'll find never-before-seen comics, a "making of feature" (including the arduous task of dialogue-balloon construction and maintenance) and a detailed reading how-to for those unfamilair with the printed page. In the end, the best way to describe this jubilant work is the very way we've described it before--"Wondermark is a gloriously demented comic that finally puts to rest the age-old question, 'What if the illustrations from a Victorian-era Sears & Roebuck catalogue starred in a Sid and Marty Kroft Saturday morning television series?'" We think that pretty much captures the comic's spirit and apparently so does Mr. Malki!, since that very quote is now featured on the back of his anthology (along with a price tag of "$349.95/$429.95 CAN," thankfully amended with a sales price burst reading, "Now only $10!")

Happy personal shopping!