Bill Watterson was born in Washington, D.C. where his father, James, worked as a patent examiner. The family moved to Chagrin Falls, Ohio where his mother, Kathryn, became a city council member when Bill was six years old. In 1980, Watterson graduated from Kenyon College with a B.A. in political science.
The Cincinnati Post offered him a job drawing political cartoons for a six-month trial period but he did not last long and was fired. Watterson went on to design grocery advertisements for four years. Calvin and Hobbes was first published on November 18, 1985. He was influenced by Charles Schulz’s Peanuts, Walt Kelly’s comic Pogo, and George Herriman’s Krazy Kat. Watterson’s cat, “Sprite,” very much inspired the personality and physical features of Hobbes.
Watterson spent much of his career trying to change the climate of newspaper comics, believing that the artistic value of comics was being undermined. He opposed the structure publishers imposed on Sunday newspaper cartoons and managed to gain an exception to these constraints for Calvin and Hobbes. Watterson also battled against pressure from publishers to merchandise his work, something he felt would cheapen his comic. He retired the strip in 1995 with the last one being published on December 31.
