40 years ago, Calvin and Hobbes' raucous adventures burst onto the comics page

Bill Watterson's revolutionary comic strip ran in syndication for the next 10 years. In that time he successfully advocated for his Sunday strips to run unedited in a fixed, "unbreakable" format so that he could compose it how he wanted. Over 3,000 individual strips were created to bring Calvin and Hobbes to life along with several supporting characters and Calvin's alter egos Spaceman Spiff, Stupendous Man and Tracer Bullet.

Watterson famously never capitalized on the popularity of his creation, shunning any merchandise or expansion into animation for TV or film, unlike other comic creators. He only ever authorized the release of the comic in consolidated book form, of which 11 have been released to date. After his retirement from the characters he has remained largely out of the spotlight, only releasing a handful of other small projects in the 30 years since.