Creator of Calvin and Hobbes Gives Rare Interview

Its hard to believe it's been 18 years since Calvin and Hobbes ended its run. To me, Calvin and Hobbes was part of a holy trinity of comic strips, along with The Far Side and Bloom County, that ran in the 80s & 90s. I have all the Calvin and Hobbes compilations including the hard cover three volume set that contains every strip from the ten year run. If you are also a fan, you know how rare a Bill Watterson interview is.

He's famously reticent and non-commercial; in fact, the story has it that when Calvin and Hobbes first hit it big, Watterson didn't own the rights to the strip, having signed it over to the syndicator (he later got them back). The syndicator wanted to market the strip through merchandising, a stuffed Hobbes and Calvin on a lunchbox, etc. Watterson begged, pleaded and threatened to avoid having the syndicator cash in on his work. Well, even though he couldn't have done anything about it, the company acquiesced and cancelled their plans. Watterson also made a concession: he would allow compilations of his work to be sold.

He's been pretty quite since 1995, but Mental Floss Magazine has an interview with him and you can check it out by clicking here.