The elusive creator of “Calvin and Hobbes” secretly penned crocodiles, Martian robots and bodacious babes in hundreds of newspapers this week for “Pearls Before Swine.”
The cartoonist, Bill Watterson, best known for creating the precocious Calvin and his beloved partner in crime, Hobbes, a plush tiger, retired from the comic business disenchanted and averse to interviews and public appearances.
His work has never been forgotten, but it’s been missed.
His art appeared surprisingly in “Pearls Before Swine” on June 4, 5 and 6 in the form of a little girl named Libby, a second grader with a natural gift for drawing who effortlessly took control of the comic.
Watterson made Stephan Pastis promise he wouldn’t reveal his identity until after each of the comics they collaborated on had been released.
“It was the hardest secret I’ve ever had to keep,” Pastis wrote in a blog post.
As Libby, Watterson dived into the familiar fantastic imagination where a crocodile gobbles Pastis up and then, a pig and mouse debate how a new artist will change their banter as a giant Martian robot attacks.
In the comic, Pastis’ character begs Libby to take over, but she backs out and calls comics a dying artform. She even complains about the lack of space — a reason Watterson cited in 1995 when he concluded “Calvin and Hobbes” in a letter to newspaper editors and readers.
The three strips are the result of weeks of careful planning between Pastis and Watterson.
Like many before, Pastis sought out the cartoonist during a book tour. He failed to catch Watterson’s attention, but he sent an email anyway.
To his surprise, Watterson replied and had an idea for a comic strip.
How could Pastis resist the Bigfoot of cartooning?
“I will do whatever you want, including setting my hair on fire,” Pastis wrote in a blog post.
The pair fleshed out the details over email and Pastis always had that inkling that he would say something wrong and “Bill would disappear back into the ether” and the “whole thing would seem like a wisp of my imagination.”
In the blog post, Pastis revealed Watterson is not a fan of technology. To avoid losing any strips in the web of snail mail, they worked with a scanner, Photoshop and email attachments, but that proved difficult for Watterson.
They worked out their technical problems over email for weeks.
Pastis described working with Watterson as “editing the pope,” he said in an interview with the Washington Post. “Like telling Michelangelo: David’s hands are too big.”
In a rare quote to the Post, Watterson says working on the strip was fun, but surprisingly challenging added.
“Stephan kept setting up these situations that required more challenging drawings … so I had to work a lot harder than I had planned to! It was a lot of fun,” Watterson said.
Watterson has not contributed to a syndicated comic strip since 1995 and in recent years had produced public art only twice in recent years, the Post reported, including a poster for a documentary film and a painting of Richard Thompson for charity.
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