Bill Watterson, the very shy creator of Calvin & Hobbes, went into hiding after he stopped creating comics in 1995. There are several reasons for his disappearance, all of which all have some connection to his quiet behavior. The main three contributions to Bill’s withdrawal include the unwanted publicity caused by his popular comic strips, the nagging curiosity of the media, and the bombardment of mail from fans of the strip. These reasons and more are the main contributions to the closing of the Calvin & Hobbes strips and Bill Watterson’s disappearance.
The first cause of Bill’s vanishing is the unwanted publicity associated with the growing fame of his comic strips. For the ten years Bill ran his strips, they grew in popularity all over America. For that ten year duration, his strips managed to be in 2,400 newspapers around the country. His growth in popularity surprised him so much he stopped doing interviews.
The discussions with Bill by the ever-nagging media started to get to him. Bill Watterson expressed his strong desire to be left alone by the media by stating, “I do not want to live, nor should I have to live, in a fish bowl or have to deal with intrusions into my life by the curious.” He does occasionally give interviews at his front door, though no pictures or notes are aloud to be taken.
A third reason for his seclusion is the annoying bombardment of mail and questions from his fans. Bill stopped answering the fan mail soon after he realized his growing fame, but the wave of fan mail only got stronger. I can imagine Bill spending lazy afternoons tending to his Fan mail bonfire.
Bill is now believed to paint landscapes, burning his paintings when he is done (probably with his fan mail). Hopefully Bill will decide to face up to the exposure to the world, get used to the bombardment of fan mail, and decide to do some work in the future.
