“There’s Treasure Everywhere,” the tenth Calvin and Hobbes collection, was published in March 1996. Image credit: Jackie Ellis/Alamy
Forty years ago, on November 18, 1985, Calvin and Hobbes made its newspaper debut. To everyone else Hobbes is a stuffed tiger, but in six‑year‑old Calvin’s imagination he’s a sharp, observant companion who joins him in everyday skirmishes and wildly inventive adventures.
Bill Watterson’s strip ran for about a decade. He ended the series in 1995 at the height of its fame, explaining that he wanted to work at “a more thoughtful pace” and explore projects beyond the daily four‑panel format. Since then Watterson has given few interviews and produced little public work.
Watterson mixed the goofy, the fantastical and the deeply thoughtful — a combination that hooked editor Lee Salem. Salem discussed the strip with NPR’s Renee Montagne in 2005; the highlights below have been condensed and clarified.
Interview highlights
Lee Salem said the strip literally took his breath away the first time he saw it. He circulated it around the office and the reaction was instant: fresh, funny, strong artwork, and an archetypal little boy living a life many readers recognized or remembered. He singled out a favorite: Calvin home with a fever, watching a lurid soap opera, who turns to the reader and grins, “Sometimes, I learn more when I stay home from school than when I go.” Salem recalled that some readers complained, thinking the strip was endorsing truancy and adult TV, missing the irony — a misunderstanding he found amusing rather than troubling.
Montagne noted that Calvin is more than a boy with a tiger, citing a strip in which the pair philosophize under a tree. When Hobbes asks, “Do you think there’s a god?” Calvin deadpans, “Yeah, well, someone is out to get me.” Salem said Calvin stands in a line with famous mischievous children like Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn more than with Charlie Brown: he’s a kid trying to navigate a world he didn’t make, full of adults and teachers, doing the best he can. Hobbes functions almost as Calvin’s alter ego, a stabilizing voice that comments on his antics and attitudes.
When Montagne asked whether Hobbes is real, Salem replied that Hobbes is real to him and to Calvin; whether other characters see him that way is left ambiguous. He praised Watterson’s ability to make a child’s imagination feel tangible. For Calvin, Hobbes is — simply — a buddy and a friend.
Lee Salem edited Calvin and Hobbes until the strip ended in 1995. He passed away in 2019.