It takes an unusual creative genius to walk away at the top of his game at the age of 37, suffering from no obvious infirmity, and remain retired from his art for over a quarter century. To all appearances, Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin and Hobbes, has been at peace with that decision ever since. Watterson is not exactly a recluse, but while he has periodically sounded off in public, he has mostly remained away from the spotlight since 1995. He has done so even as the world has come, ever more, to resemble the attitudes of Calvin, which seem more ahead of their time with each passing year.
So there is both excitement and trepidation at the news that Watterson is returning to comics. No, the boy and his tiger are not involved, nor a daily strip, nor anything about childhood or the modern age. Watterson has co-authored a graphic novel called The Mysteries, due out October 10. According to his publisher:
From Bill Watterson, bestselling creator of the beloved comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, and John Kascht, one of America’s most renowned caricaturists, comes a mysterious and beautifully illustrated fable about what lies beyond human understanding. In a fable for grown-ups by cartoonist Bill Watterson, a long-ago kingdom is afflicted with unexplainable calamities. Hoping to end the torment, the king dispatches his knights to discover the source of the mysterious events. Years later, a single battered knight returns. For the book’s illustrations, Watterson and caricaturist John Kascht worked together for several years in unusually close collaboration. Both artists abandoned their past ways of working, inventing images together that neither could anticipate—a mysterious process in its own right.
The trepidation, of course, comes from the possibility that Watterson will meet the fate of others who could never re-create the magic. Arthur Conan Doyle was stuck writing Sherlock Holmes stories for years, which he came to detest doing, because the public wanted nothing else from him; J. K. Rowling has reluctantly come to a similar conclusion after writing non–Harry Potter novels under a pseudonym. Still, there is something to be said for Watterson deciding, at age 64, that he still wants to go exploring.