Simple Living

“I’m very happy that people enjoy the strip and have become devoted to it,” Watterson said. They certainly have. After little more than a year of syndication, Calvin and Hobbes appears in 250 newspapers. “But it seems that with a lot of the marketing stuff, the incentive is just to cash in. It’s not understanding what makes the strip work.”

So despite dangled millions, Watterson has ended discussions to license Calvin and Hobbes for greeting cards. Proposals to animate the strip for television have been placed on hold. One day, there could be a Calvin doll or a stuffed Hobbes because “they (items) are pretty much advertisements for the strip . . . they’re not trying to do the job of the comic strip, they’re not giving jokes or developing characters.”

Preserving the integrity and fullness of his characters, is cardinal with Watterson.

Similarly, he’s opposing attempts to intrude upon his unassuming life style. Sleeping late, enjoying slow moments, knowing only simple concerns are his pleasures. Maybe as a superstition, he feels that if anything is allowed to change Watterson it also will change Calvin and Hobbes.