Calvin & Hobbes Recluse Gives Interview

He may not be as reclusive as the late J.D. Salinger, but an interview with Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson is still a hard thing to come by. Via email, The Cleveland Plain Dealer managed to talk to the cartoonist in his first major interview since 1989. Fifteen years after the beloved comic strip came to an end, Watterson still insists, “It’s always better to leave the party early. […] I think some of the reason Calvin and Hobbes still finds an audience today is because I chose not to run the wheels off it.” Watterson also joked about his avid fan base, “Ah, the life of a newspaper cartoonist—how I miss the groupies, drugs, and trashed hotel rooms!” Even as the U.S. Postal Service prepares to release a commemorative stamp for the strip, Watterson refused to take too much credit, saying, “You mix a bunch of ingredients, and once in a great while, chemistry happens. I can't explain why the strip caught on the way it did, and I don't think I could ever duplicate it. A lot of things have to go right all at once.”