Bill Watterson

William Boyd Watterson II (born July 5, 1958) is an American cartoonist who authored the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, syndicated from 1985 to 1995. The strip followed a six-year-old boy and his stuffed tiger, who comes to life in Calvin's imagination, and became one of the most acclaimed and commercially successful comic strips of the twentieth century. Watterson ended Calvin and Hobbes at the height of its popularity with a short statement to newspaper readers that he felt he had achieved all he could in the medium, then largely withdrew from public life. He is known for his outspoken resistance to merchandising and licensing his characters, a position unusual among successful strip cartoonists, and for arguing publicly for expanding the newspaper comic strip's artistic and spatial freedom against shrinking print formats. Watterson grew up in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, whose suburban Midwestern setting shaped the world of Calvin and Hobbes, and cited Charles Schulz, Winsor McCay and George Herriman among his influences.