Letter from Bill Watterson and Autograph from Charles Shultz.

I thought I would share this story with you even though it isn’t photography related.  As a young man I was always interested in comic strips. Two of my favorites were Calvin and Hobbes and Peanuts. I read the first Calvin and Hobbes back in the eighties. I loved that strip. I wanted to know the technique behind it.

I had very little to go on. This was before the invention of Google. I decided to write to the Artist and ask him directly. I mailed a letter and one of my drawings to his Syndicate in Kansas hoping they would forward it.  A few weeks later I received a response.  At first I thought it was just a standard form letter but recently, having done a little research on the subject, I realized how unique this letter is. Bill Watterson rarely wrote to fans. After he retired the strip in 1995 he dropped out of the public eye altogether.

Watterson  is the subject of a recent book titled “Looking for Calvin and Hobbes: The Unconventional Story of Bill Watterson and his revolutionary comic strip.”  There is even talk of a movie.

I have read that he won’t even pick up the phone for Steven Spielberg or George Lucas. Journalists have tried to find him for an interview but to no avail.

By all indications the letter I received in the eighties is  a one-of-a-kind.

This is the envelope (with address deleted)

This next comic strip related item is an autographed book from Charles Shultz. I felt sort of cocky after receiving the Calvin and Hobbes letter so I started sending letters to other cartoonists whom I admired. The top of that list was Charles Shultz (Peanuts). I wrote to him asking for an autograph. I also sent along one of my drawings. The following is the response.

And here’s the final result.

Watterson holds Shultz in highest regard as indicated by this article.

That’s it. Hope you enjoyed that little side-step from photography.