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

This week, the Internet was abuzz with speculation that Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson [...]

This week, the Internet was abuzz with speculation that Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson may have been quietly filling in panels on Stephan Pastis's Pearls Before Swine.

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:

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