by Renée Montaigne
Tuesday, November 18, 2025 • 9:29 am EST
40 years ago – on November 18, 1985 – a new comic strip appeared in the newspaper: Calvin and Hobbes.
Hobbes was a stuffed tiger, but in 6-year-old Calvin’s mind he was a strangely attentive companion to his day-to-day challenges and wildly imaginative adventures.
The beloved couple’s adventure lasted just a decade. His creator – cartoonist Bill Watterson – left calvin and hobbes At the peak of its popularity.
Watterson – who has given few interviews – effortlessly combines the silly, the fantastic and the profound in his strip. That slightly neurotic quality captured editor Lee Salem, who spoke with NPR’s Renee Montaigne in 2005.
The following exchange has been edited for length and clarity.
Interview highlights
Lee Salem: I remember reading it for the first time, and it all, it literally took my breath away. And I circulated it in the office, and the response was immediate. It was fresh, it was funny, the art was powerful, and here was this perfect little boy living a life that few of us lived or wanted to live or remembered living. ,
One of my favorites is actually on my wall in the office, and it shows Calvin in bed, apparently with a fever or something. He has a thermometer in his mouth. You hear the words from the television. He’s watching a soap opera – you know, “If you’ll leave your spouse and I’ll leave my spouse and we can get married.” And it goes on and on, as bad soap operas sometimes do. And Calvin turns to the reader with a big smile on his face, and he says, “Sometimes, I learn more at home than when I go to school.” And I thought it was very funny. And, surprisingly, when it ran, we actually got complaints from readers who said, “Well, you know, you’re advocating that kids stay home and watch adult soap operas.” And somehow, the entire sense of irony was lost on him, but I don’t think it was lost on me. I love that strip.
Renee Montagne: You know, I describe him as a little boy with his tiger friend, but there’s a lot more to him than that. So there’s a spot where he’s sitting philosophizing, as he often does, on the grass, this time under a tree. Hobbes is looking at the sky and saying, “Do you think there’s a God?” And they’re both looking and thinking, and then in the fourth panel, Calvin thinks about it. And then do you remember what he says?
Salem: Yes. “Yeah, okay, someone’s come to get me.”
Montaigne: There were some very famous little boys before Calvin: Charlie Brown, Dennis the Menace. What made him different?
Salem: You know, we saw Calvin living in a world he never created, where adults and teachers lived, and he was trying to deal with it and accomplish everything he could. I think there’s probably a little more Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn in Calvin than Charlie Brown. I almost see Hobbes as the alter ego of Calvin. She is a balancing act that allows Kelvin to exist. He provides commentary on some of Calvin’s crazy adventures and attitudes.
Montaigne: When there is another person in the room Hobbs transforms from a stuffed tiger, to the real Hobbs we know and love. Is Hobbes real or not?
Salem: That’s for me, and obviously that’s for Kelvin. Whether he is with other characters or not is an open question. But I think one of the things that Bill brought to the art board was this amazing ability to take a child’s imagination and fantasy life and make it real. It is actually irrelevant whether Hobbes exists as we would define it. For Kelvin, there he is. He’s a friend, he’s a companion, he’s a friend.
Lee Salem edited calvin and hobbes Until the comic strip ended in 1995. Producer Bill Watterson said at the time that he wanted to explore a canvas beyond the four panels of a daily newspaper, and work at what he called a “more thoughtful pace”, but he has done little public work since then.
Salem died in 2019.