ReviewsThe Best Comic-Strip Collections Still in Print

The two cornerstone comic-strip purchases still in print are The Complete Peanuts (Fantagraphics, published 2004–2016 as a 26-volume set covering 1950–2000, per the publisher's own edition history) and The Complete Calvin and Hobbes (Andrews McMeel, 2005), a three-volume hardcover slipcased set collecting every strip Bill Watterson drew across 1985–1995 in 1,440 pages. One documents the entire half-century run of the medium's most syndicated work; the other preserves a decade many critics rank among the greatest in strip history. Both remain available as of the publishers' 2025 catalogs.

This guide covers the newspaper-strip shelf from documented edition data: volume counts, publication years and formats per publisher listings. It is a buying guide, not an appraisal of any collection you own.

Why is The Complete Peanuts the default starting point?

Scale and completeness. Fantagraphics announced the project in 2004 with the strip's creator involved in early planning before his death that year, and the publisher released the 26 volumes — two per year of strips, in chronological order — across twelve years, finishing the 1950–2000 run in 2016. It also produced companion volumes of Peanuts-era dailies under related branding. For a reader wanting the full arc of a single artist's lifetime work, no other project in English matches it. Practical note: the individual volumes are boxed in pairs by decade, so you can buy the 1960s without committing to 26 books at once.

Is the Calvin and Hobbes set worth the shelf space?

Yes, and it is the rare premium set without a cheaper complete alternative — Watterson's complete works exist only in this format. The 2005 slipcase collects all 3,160 strips the creator drew before retiring the strip at the end of 1995, per the publisher's edition copy. At roughly 1,440 pages across three hardcovers it is heavy enough to be furniture, but it is also the cleanest single purchase on this list: everything, in order, in the artist's preferred presentation.

What if you want great old strips beyond the famous two?

Look to the archival reprint lines. Krazy Kat — George Herriman's Sunday masterwork of the 1916–1944 era — has been reprinted in multiple English editions over the decades, most prominently through Sunday Press Books' oversized Sunday-morning volumes, which reproduce the pages at close to their original newspaper scale. The strip's standing as a touchstone for cartoonists from the classic era onward is documented in the Library of Congress's cartoon and comic art holdings, which preserve Herriman's place in the medium's canon. Popeye by E.C. Segar received a complete multi-volume hardcover reprint from IDW's Library of American Comics imprint, and Little Nemo in Slumberland by Winsor McCay has appeared in restored oversized editions — both are documented reprint programs rather than rumor.

Which modern strips are collected well?

Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau — the first comic strip to win a Pulitzer Prize, in 1975, a fact recorded in the Pulitzer Prize board's own awards history — is collected in chronological paperback volumes. Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis continues the numbered-treasury tradition that Garfield popularized, and web-era strips now reach print through crowdfunded collections, a channel that has visibly moved mid-2000s webcomics into bookstores. The treasury format — dailies plus Sundays with commentary — remains the standard for working humor strips, and per Andrews McMeel's catalog it stays in steady reprint.

How should you actually buy into the format?

1. Start with one complete work, not a survey — Calvin and Hobbes if you want one transaction, Complete Peanuts by decade if you want to spread it out.
2. Prefer chronological editions over themed best-ofs; strips are dated comedy, and the datedness is the pleasure.
3. Check page dimensions before buying archival reprints — the oversized Sunday reproductions are spectacular but shelf-hostile.
4. Verify in-print status against current publisher listings, not marketplace stock, which lags reprints.

Spoilers barely apply here, but for the record: the emotional beats readers cite — the final Calvin and Hobbes strip's open-ended farewell, Peanuts' decades-long unrequited love — are matters of record, not plot twists. The strips re-read precisely because they end softly.

The verdict in one line: two cornerstone sets define the shelf, a handful of archival lines preserve its history, and everything on this list is verifiably in print as of the publishers' 2025 catalogs.