Editing Calvin and Hobbes (section)

== History ==
=== Development ===
{{quote box|align=right|width=25em|quote="I thought it was perhaps too 'adult,' too literate. When my then-8-year-old son remarked, 'This is the ''[[Doonesbury]]'' for kids!' I suspected we had something unusual on our hands."|source=—[[Lee Salem (editor)|Lee Salem]], Watterson's editor at [[Universal Press Syndicate|Universal]], recalling his reaction after seeing Watterson's first submission<ref name="cleve2010" />}}
''Calvin and Hobbes'' was conceived when Bill Watterson, while working in an advertising job he detested,<ref name="detest">{{cite web |publisher= Via Calvin and Hobbes' Magical World (fan site)| url= http://home3.inet.tele.dk/stadil/spe_kc.htm | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20060219183419/http://home3.inet.tele.dk/stadil/spe_kc.htm |archive-date= February 19, 2006 | title=Speech by Bill Watterson|location=Kenyon College, [[Gambier, Ohio]]|date=May 20, 1990 |first=Bill | last=Watterson | author-link=Bill Watterson | access-date = March 16, 2006}}</ref> began devoting his spare time to developing a newspaper comic for potential syndication. He explored various strip ideas but all were rejected by the syndicates. [[United Media|United Feature Syndicate]] finally responded positively to one strip called ''The Doghouse'', which featured a side character (the main character's little brother) who had a stuffed tiger. United identified these characters as the strongest and encouraged Watterson to develop them as the center of their own strip.<ref name="tucker2005">{{Cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/03/AR2005100301754.html |title=The Tiger Strikes Again |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=October 4, 2005 |first=Neely |last=Tucker |archive-date=April 2, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120402041616/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/03/AR2005100301754.html |url-status=live |df=mdy }}</ref> Ironically, United Feature ultimately rejected the new strip as lacking in marketing potential, although [[Universal Press Syndicate]] took it up.<ref name="simple">{{cite news | title=Calvin and Hobbes Creator Draws on the Simple Life | first=Paul|last= Dean |work=Los Angeles Times | date=May 26, 1987}}</ref><ref name="christie1987">{{cite web|last=Christie |first=Andrew |date=January 1987 |title=An Interview With Bill Watterson |publisher=[[Honk (magazine)|Honk!]] via Calvin and Hobbies: Magic on Paper (fan site) |issue=2 |agency=[[Fantagraphics Books]] |access-date=December 24, 2011 |url=http://ignatz.brinkster.net/chonk.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110607004149/http://ignatz.brinkster.net/chonk.html |archive-date=June 7, 2011 |url-status=dead |df=mdy }}</ref>

=== Launch and early success (1985–1990) ===
The first ''Calvin and Hobbes'' strip was published on November 18, 1985<ref name="pr_calvin" /> in 35 newspapers. The strip quickly became popular. Within a year of [[print syndication|syndication]], the strip was published in roughly 250 newspapers and proved to have international appeal with translation and wide circulation outside the United States.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2015-11-19|title='Calvin and Hobbes' just turned 30 -- here's the history of the strip and its mysterious creator Bill Watterson|url=https://www.businessinsider.com/calvin-and-hobbes-just-turned-30-heres-the-history-of-the-strip-and-its-mysterious-creator-bill-watterson-2015-11|access-date=2021-10-13|website=Business Insider Australia|language=en-AU}}</ref>

Although ''Calvin and Hobbes'' underwent continual artistic development and creative innovation over the period of syndication, the earliest strips demonstrated a remarkable consistency with the latest. Watterson introduced all the major characters within the first three weeks and made no changes to the central cast over the strip's 10-year history. 

By April 5, 1987, Watterson was featured in an article in the ''[[Los Angeles Times]]''.<ref name="simple" /> ''Calvin and Hobbes'' earned Watterson the Reuben Award from the [[National Cartoonists Society]] in the Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year category, first in 1986 and again in 1988. He was nominated another time in 1992. The Society awarded him the Humor Comic Strip Award for 1988.<ref name="reuben">{{cite web |title=NCS Reuben Award winners (1975–present) |publisher=[[National Cartoonists Society]] |url=http://www.reuben.org/ncs/archive/divisions/reuben2.asp |access-date=July 12, 2005 |archive-date=June 28, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110628201752/http://www.reuben.org/ncs/archive/divisions/reuben2.asp|url-status=dead}}</ref> ''Calvin and Hobbes'' has also won [[Bill Watterson#Awards and honors|several more awards]].

As his creation grew in popularity, there was strong interest from the syndicate to [[merchandising|merchandise]] the characters and expand into other forms of media. Watterson's contract with the syndicate allowed the characters to be licensed without the creator's consent, as was standard at the time. Nevertheless, Watterson had leverage by threatening to simply walk away from the comic strip.

This dynamic played out in a long and emotionally draining battle between Watterson and his syndicate editors. By 1991, Watterson had achieved his goal of securing a new contract that granted him legal control over his creation and all future licensing arrangements.<ref name=":4">{{Cite book|title=Looking for Calvin and Hobbes : the unconventional story of Bill Watterson and his revolutionary comic strip|last=Nevin.|first=Martell|date=2009|publisher=Continuum|isbn=9781441193667|location=New York|oclc=682891953}}</ref>

=== Creative control (1991–1995) ===
Having achieved his objective of creative control, Watterson's desire for privacy subsequently reasserted itself and he ceased all media interviews, relocated to [[New Mexico]], and largely disappeared from public engagements, refusing to attend the ceremonies of any of the cartooning awards he won.<ref name=":1" /> The pressures of the battle over merchandising led to Watterson taking an extended break from May 5, 1991, to February 1, 1992, a move that was virtually unprecedented in the world of syndicated cartoonists.
{{multiple image
| align = right
| header = Comparison of ''Calvin and Hobbes''{{'}}s following layout changes
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| width = 260
| image1 = Calvin and Hobbes 6 Sep 1987.jpg
| alt1 = 
| caption1 = 
| image2 = Calvin and Hobbes 26 Sep 1993.jpg
| alt2 = 
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| footer = The comic strip on the left from 1987 illustrates the layout constraints that Bill Watterson was required to work within for the first 6 years of the comic's syndication. The comic strip on the right from 1993 demonstrates one of the more creative layouts that Watterson had the freedom to employ after 1991.
}}

During Watterson's first [[sabbatical]] from the strip, Universal Press Syndicate continued to charge newspapers full price to re-run old ''Calvin and Hobbes'' strips. Few editors approved of the move, but the strip was so popular that they had no choice but to continue to run it for fear that competing newspapers might pick it up and draw its fans away.<ref name="astor1991">{{cite journal |last=Astor |first=David |title=Nine-month Vacation for Bill Watterson |page=34 |journal=[[Editor & Publisher]] |publisher=Duncan McIntosh |location=Irvine, California |date=1991-03-30}}</ref> Watterson returned to the strip in 1992 with plans to produce his Sunday strip as an unbreakable half of a newspaper or [[Tabloid (newspaper format)|tabloid]] page. This made him only the second cartoonist since [[Garry Trudeau]] to have sufficient popularity to demand more space and control over the presentation of his work.{{Cn|date=March 2025}}

Watterson took a second sabbatical from April 3 through December 31, 1994. His return came with an announcement that ''Calvin and Hobbes'' would be concluding at the end of 1995. Stating his belief that he had achieved everything that he wanted to within the medium, he announced his intention to work on future projects at a slower pace with fewer artistic compromises.<ref name=":4" />

The final strip ran on Sunday, December 31, 1995, depicting Calvin and Hobbes sledding down a snowy hill after a fresh snowfall with Calvin exclaiming "Let's go exploring!"<ref name="CC+H_final_strip">[[#CITEREFWatterson2005|Watterson (2005)]]. vol. 3, p. 481. Comic originally published December 31, 1995.</ref><ref name=25yearsago>{{cite news |date=December 31, 2020 |title='Calvin and Hobbes' said goodbye 25 years ago. Here's why Bill Watterson's masterwork enchants us still. |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2020/12/31/calvin-hobbes-bill-watterson/ |access-date=January 3, 2021}}</ref><ref name="pr_calvin">{{cite web |url=http://www.andrewsmcmeel.com/calvinandhobbes/pr_calvin.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051026183516/http://www.andrewsmcmeel.com/calvinandhobbes/pr_calvin.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=2005-10-26 |access-date=2009-05-02 |title=The Complete Calvin and Hobbes |publisher=[[Andrews & McMeel]]}}</ref>

Speaking to NPR in 2005, animation critic Charles Solomon opined that the final strip "left behind a hole in the comics page that no strip has been able to fill."<ref>{{cite episode |title=The Complete Calvin and Hobbes |url=https://www.npr.org/transcripts/4968065|series=Day to Day |series-link=Day to Day |credits=Charles Solomon |network=[[National Public Radio|NPR]] |air-date=October 21, 2005 |minutes=3:28.50 |quote=In the final strip, Calvin and Hobbes put aside their conflicts and rode their sled into a snowy forest. They left behind a hole in the comics page that no strip has been able to fill. |archive-date=November 13, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191113232016/https://www.npr.org/transcripts/4968065 |url-status=live}}</ref>