Dear Mr. Watterson Page #2

and look through those.

And that's how I came to know

Calvin and Hobbes

is through those first three

or four months after she passed.

It's just finding a place

to laugh again.

So I moved out here

to this brand new state,

this brand new house,

brand new neighborhood,

and I knew nobody.

So I was looking for something to

gravitate towards or associate with,

and Calvin and Hobbes became

something I could bond with

on a daily basis when

the newspaper would come.

I didn't understand, sometimes,

the significance of his statements.

But that really pushed me

into research,

and going to the dictionary

or looking for meaning.

It's one of those things that

you just, when you find it,

you want to share it.

And as soon as he could

start reading,

I wanted to give him the books.

And just like I thought it would,

I mean, there's times now

where he'll be reading it

in his bedroom,

and I'll just hear him laughing.

And just that simple act

of hearing him laugh,

as I know what he's reading,

it's like, there you go.

That's what I was hoping for.

I don't know if you know

how Israel was in 2001-2002.

It was pretty crazy.

Open the newspaper and you saw

another bombing everyday.

It was really intense.

So I looked forward

to the Sunday paper

because they would run the strip.

And I cut them out and would

hang them up on my wall.

Even if there was something

horrible in the paper,

I would still get my smile

and a good feeling

from just reading that.

It relieves the stress of living

in that kind of a world.

When you need something

to smile about

you just pull out one of

the old comics and just read it,

and it brings you back.

And I think that's the beauty

of comics, especially Calvin.

For those of you who don't know him,

Calvin is a 6 year old

who some might call a bit

of a troublemaker.

But he's also extremely intelligent

with an endless imagination

and an incredible lust for life.

Hobbes is his ballast,

his voice of reason,

his co-conspirator and loyal companion.

There's Mom and Dad, Susie,

Rosalyn, Moe, Mrs. Wormwood,

and a few other characters.

But nobody else sees

and understands Hobbes

the way Calvin does.

And it seems the reverse

is probably true as well.

If I actually met someone who had

never read Calvin and Hobbes,

which does occasionally happen,

I would probably immediately

just go to my desk, pull a book off,

and say, here, take this.

This will change your life.

It's so hard to just sum it up,

other than to say

this is every one of us.

Certainly it's a family strip.

It's a kid's strip.

In some senses,

it's a gag-a-day kind of strip.

There's always a punch line,

some kind of gag at the end.

But in other ways, I think

it transcends all of those things

because there is a little bit

of philosophy in it.

There's a little bit of commentary

about society.

Certainly there's a lot of humor.

It's a very funny strip.

So it really, I think,

defies categorization.

There have been a lot of strips

out there about younger people,

Dennis the Menace, a whole school

of strips that try to recall youth

and make it relevant to readers

across different ages.

But Bill's take was so fresh

and so simple.

Here he just took this idea

and just blew it up

into this wonderful relationship.

It's the only strip

we've ever launched

that we had editors who hadn't

seen it yet calling us saying,

"Hey, we've heard about this thing

called Calvin and Hobbes.

We want to be sure

we get to see it."

I was just blown away immediately.

It was one of those things

that was so much fun to read.

It drew me in right then.

And I remember getting to the end

of the set and thinking,

where's the rest of it?

I want more.

I want more.

Here was a strip that was

much better drawn

than anything in the papers,

that had a really fresh perspective,

and it just took off.

Within less than a year,

Calvin was taunting Susie.

He was playing at

being Spaceman Spiff.

I think it was within the first year

that he started G.R.0.S.S.,

the Get Rid Of Slimy girlS club

in his tree fort.

And when you look at other strips,

it generally takes an artist

much longer to reach

that kind of maturity

and that kind of understanding

of who his characters are,

what their strengths are,

what their potential is for humor

and for interaction.

And Watterson just had the pen

and ink equivalent

of hitting the ground running.

This was my bedroom

when I was a kid.

When I was 10 years old,

my brother moved to another room

in the house,

and this became my room.

And my dad put in this corkboard wall,

and I had it plastered with things

that sort of represented who I was.

And the main thing was

Calvin and Hobbes Sunday strips.

I'd get the Sunday paper,

dailies too, but mostly the Sunday,

and I'd go and get it right away

and cut out Calvin and Hobbes

and it would go right on the wall.

And even at the end, the ceiling,

all along here,

this was all comic strips

the whole way,

and even on the other side,

just plastered,

plastered with Calvin and Hobbes.

Calvin's world is just huge.

It doesn't stop.

There was Spaceman Spiff.

There was Susie.

There were the snowmen.

- I love the snowmen stuff.

I love the dinosaur stuff,

totally.

- He turns into the T-Rex at recess

a lot, and he's going "AAARRRGGGGHHH!!".

- There were the snowballs

as well as the snowmen.

- And there are the mutant killer

monster snow goons,

and that just cracks me up.

- Oh, and then there is

the infamous red wagon.

- And there was getting

jumped by Hobbes.

- Monsters under the bed.

- Tracer Bullet.

- And you see him in black

and white with the hat on

and the dame walked in,

she was hysterical.

- He'd go on a space adventure.

- And the time machine parts.

- Stupendous Man,

Safari Al, I believe.

- And then you have

the Transmogrifier,

when he duplicates himself.

- There was G.R.O.S.S.

- Get Rid Of Slimy girlS.

- Calvin going with his parents

on vacation, going camping.

- The soap opera-esque ones.

- He would draw like Mary Worth

or Rex Morgan, M.D.,

or some ultra-realistic comic.

- One of my favorites with the

teacher is he's in the classroom,

and he's doing whatever.

The teacher calls on him,

and he's imagining

that he's being sentenced

to death.

And he runs out of the classroom

and hides in a cave.

And you see just his eyes

and black screen, and he says,

what's that smell,

or what's that noise?

And all of a sudden you see

the lights go on,

and there are ten monsters --

like hideous monsters behind him.

And he runs out.

Then it cuts back to reality,

and he's snuck into

the teacher's lounge,

which he thought was a cave.

And there's just a little bubble

that says, "Who was that?"

That stuff cracks me up

because it's so dramatic.

Everything is so dramatic

in Calvin's mind,

and to everyone outside,

it's just like,

what's that little kid doing?

That little kid is kind of weird.

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