Sometimes it's best just to let things lie. Calvin & Hobbes was a hallmark of my childhood and to this day remains my favourite comic strip, or even just comic in general of any sort. I absolutely love Calvin & Hobbes, and I would dearly love to see a return...
But at the same time it's done. Bill Watterson wants nothing to do with it anymore, and without his artistic drive, his charm, the beautiful watercolour artwork or the clever double meanings which can appeal to children and adults alike, it wouldn't be the same. It would be the equivalent of those bumper stickers you see with Calvin peeing on something, a crass cash-in on my childhood.
And I don't want that. When I was younger and I learned Calvin & Hobbes was ending I was crushed. As I grew older and learned the reasoning behind that, I was respectful.
Watterson himself puts it best, I quote:
This isn't as hard to understand as people try to make it. By the end of ten years, I'd said pretty much everything I had come there to say. It's always better to leave the party early. If I had rolled along with the strip's popularity and repeated myself for another five, ten, or twenty years, the people now "grieving" for Calvin and Hobbes would be wishing me dead and cursing newspapers for running tedious, ancient strips like mine instead of acquiring fresher, livelier talent. And I'd be agreeing with them. I think some of the reason Calvin and Hobbes still finds an audience today is because I chose not to run the wheels off it. I've never regretted stopping when I did.
It's over. It's done. Cherish the memories and move on. You know what I'd much much rather see? I want to see a new visionary mind blazing their own path through whatever medium they choose.
Wouldn't that be better?
