Bill Watterson's Back (Temporarily)

I don't know what childhood/teenage life you had, but if you had a great one, you must be a die hard fan of Calvin & Hobbes. I do not see any cartoon strip having that kind of influence ... it was smart, very funny, imaginative and irreverent. The author Bill Watterson was almost a recluse, below was the only available photo of him on the internet. 

He made good money for sure just from his books and reruns of his strips, but he could have easily made hundreds of millions more if he had agreed to: licensing deals on mugs, t-shirts, and movie deals. He never commercialised Calvin & Hobbes, and that's something to shout about. I have a couple of Calvin & Hobbes t-shirts which I bought (pirated of course) many years ago in Bangkok.



Out of the blue, the creator of a lesser known comic strip, Pearls Before Swine, revealed that Bill had authored three strips of Pearls Before Swine incognito, till now as revealed by Stephan, the author of Pearls Before Swine. It all started when he scripted the cartoon below, masquerading as Bill Watterson to get the girl.



Then Bill got in touch with him to try and do something together, making him promise not to reveal anything till way after the cartoons has been published. They created Libby, a young kid who thought she could draw better cartoons than Stephan, and its magical cause you know the frames can only be drawn by Bill Watterson.







Sigh ... I am all for not being too commercialised, but I cannot wait for a Calvin & Hobbes movie, but it must be done with Bill's final vouch of approval.