Watterson, Bill (1958-…), an American cartoonist, created the popular “Calvin and Hobbes” comic strip. Calvin is a mischievous 6-year-old boy, and Hobbes is his toy stuffed tiger. But for Calvin, Hobbes is really alive and acts and speaks like a human being. To everyone else, Hobbes is just a stuffed animal.
In addition to Calvin’s friendship with Hobbes, the comic strip humorously portrays Calvin’s relations with his parents and his friend Susie Derkins, and his conflicts with his baby sitter, Rosalyn; with his teacher, Miss Wormwood; and with Moe, a bully at school. In many strips, Calvin imaginatively makes himself the hero of fantastic adventures in outer space or in the prehistoric world of dinosaurs. These fantasy adventures have inspired some of Watterson’s most imaginative drawing. Some of the strips also make satirical comments about American society and pop culture.
Watterson has been a leader in fighting for treatment of the comic strip as an art form. He has battled with newspaper editors over space for his drawings. He also refuses to license his characters’ images for use on merchandise, stating that such commercial exposure would cheapen his work.
Watterson was born in Washington, D.C. His family moved to Chagrin Falls, Ohio, when he was 6 years old. He graduated from Kenyon College in Ohio in 1980 with a B.A. degree in political science. Watterson began his cartooning career almost immediately after graduating, drawing political cartoons for a short time for The Cincinnati Post. He then designed grocery advertisements. “Calvin and Hobbes” first appeared on Nov. 18, 1985. Watterson voluntarily ended the strip 10 years later, with the final strip published on Dec. 31, 1995. A collection of all “Calvin and Hobbes” comic strips was published in three volumes in 2005.
