Calvin And Hobbes Ride Again!

Our local paper carries the comic strip Pearls Before Swine. It's a little offbeat and quirky, which may be one reason I enjoy it. I'm also a big fan of Calvin and Hobbes, as is the Pearls Before Swine creator, Stephan Pastis. So I got a kick out of this recent strip.

Pastis sent the above comic to Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin and Hobbes. I'll let Pastis tell the story from there.

Bill Watterson is the Bigfoot of cartooning.

He is legendary. He is reclusive ... Few in the cartooning world have ever spoken to him. Even fewer have ever met him.

In fact, legend has it that when Steven Spielberg called to see if he wanted to make a movie, Bill wouldn’t even take the call.

...So it was with little hope of success that I set out to try and meet him last April.

 I emailed him the strip and thanked him for all his great work and the influence he’d had on me. And never expected to get a reply.

And what do you know, he wrote back.

To make a long story short, Watterson and Pastis collaborated on three strips of Pearls Before Swine. You can go here to read the entire story and for links to the strips.

In a strage twist of fate, shortly after I read the story above, I ran across the story below. It was written in response to a short story creative writing exercise. It describes the last minutes of Calvin's life. (WARNING - make sure you have some kleenex handy when you read it.)

In the final minutes of his life, Calvin has one last talk with Hobbes.