Calvin and Hobbes Creator Bill Watterson Returned To The Comics Page This Week

Cartoonist Ben Towle did a good job assembling the cartoons with feedback from Internet conspiracy theorists and got everyone talking about it on Thursday.

Today via his blog, Pastis confirmed it, saying that the notoriously-reclusive Watterson had proposed the idea himself after exchanging e-mails with Pastis, who had previously used Calvin and Hobbes as a punchline in one of his semi-autobiographical strips (above). Here’s the heart of the story, although the whole thing is well worth a read:

Let me tell you. Just getting an email from Bill Watterson is one of the most mind-blowing, surreal experiences I have ever had. Bill Watterson really exists? And he sends email? And he’s communicating with me?

But he was. And he had a great sense of humor about the strip I had done, and was very funny, and oh yeah….

…He had a comic strip idea he wanted to run by me.

Watterson asked that Pastis not reveal that he was the one working on the panels until the story arc — which involved Pastis (who is a character in the strip) being one-upped by a second-grader who insulted and belittled his art — had completed.

You can check out the strips, with some Twitter commentary from Pastis, below: