Calvin And Hobbes Creator Bill Watterson Creates First Comic Strip In Almost 20 Years

Calvin And Hobbes creator Bill Watterson is probably getting everyone’s hopes up since he just created his very first comic strip since 1995.

In a related report by The Inquisitr, a Calvin And Hobbes painting had fans recalling memories of reading the newspaper comic when they were younger and had everyone wishing for more. Earlier this year Watterson released new artwork for a stripped movie poster.

Hailed as a cartoonist for the ages, in 1985 Calvin And Hobbes launched and eventually spread to 2,500 newspapers worldwide and the 17 books have sold more than 30 million copies. The reason why Bill Watterson quit creating Calvin And Hobbes is tied into how he views his art in relation to the business side of making comic strips. By 1995, Watterson had spent years fighting his syndicate over merchandising and with newspapers over running comic strips so small that the visual impact of the story was effected.

In an interview last year Watterson explained his decision to give it up:

“I had signed most of my rights away in order to get syndicated, so I had no control over what happened to my own work, and I had no legal position to argue anything. I could not take the strip with me if I quit, or even prevent the syndicate from replacing me, so I was truly scared I was going to lose everything I cared about either way. I made a lot of impassioned arguments for why a work of art should reflect the ideas and beliefs of its creator, but the simple fact was that my contract made that issue irrelevant. It was a grim, sad time. Desperation makes a person do crazy things.”

Watterson is notoriously reclusive and in fact the only photos on the internet are apparently from many years ago. So when Pearls Before Swine creator Stephan Pastis tried getting hold of Watterson he was surprised to receive a reply. Eventually the two decided to collaborate on creating several new comic strips where a little girl named Libby takes over the creation of Pearls Before Swine. Libby is essentially a mouthpiece for Watterson’s take on the comic book industry since she calls comics a dying art form and complains about the available space in the strip.

While Watterson has not said anything about creating a new comic (Calvin And Hobbes web comic anyone?), he did say he had fun:

“Stephan kept setting up these situations that required more challenging drawings… so I had to work a lot harder than I had planned to! It was a lot of fun.”

Do you wish Calvin And Hobbes would return to newspapers or even grace our smartphones and computer screens?