On New Year’s Eve 1995, six-year-old Calvin and his tiger, Hobbes, sledded off together for the last time. It was the final strip in Bill Watterson’s acclaimed comic, Calvin and Hobbes, which appeared in 2,400 newspapers, and it looked as though it might be Watterson’s final published work.
In the ensuing decades, the man who had become a cartooning legend seemed to have all but disappeared, as if he were just a figment of Calvin’s rich imagination. He rarely gave interviews; his occasional small projects, including secretly filling in for another cartoonist for a few days, were newsworthy events. Last week’s announcement of Watterson’s first major work in nearly 30 years – The Mysteries, a vibrantly illustrated “fable for grown-ups” – stunned fans and called for celebration.
