It might not be a stretch to call Bill Watterson my favourite artist of all time. If pictures are worth a thousand words, Watterson’s Calvin & Hobbes were tiny microcosmic epics — each three panel strip having the wit, imagination, verve and poignancy of any an English lit curriculum novel.

With Calvin & Hobbes commemorative stamps about to be launched by the U.S. Postal Service, Cleveland Plain Dealer reporter John Campanelli took a total shot in the dark, emailing the reclusive cartoonist a series of questions with no expectations of a reply. Incredibly, Watterson did in fact send back answers, the first “interview” the local artist had done since roughly 1989. It isn’t without cause that Watterson was jokingly called “The J.D. Salinger of cartoonists,” but coincidentally this interview took place before Salinger’s recent death.

The transcription isn’t particularly insightful, but reveals a lot about Watterson’s artistic sensibilities about his work and his own (clearly private) personal life.

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