Bill Watterson's precocious Calvin debuted in newspapers back in 1985, thumbing his nose at every teeny-tiny bit of authority, knowledge, and presumed matter-of-fact he encountered, in favor of what his imagination might instead conjure. The character's partner in crime, of course, was Hobbes, a stuffed tiger whose sentience was further amplified by the boy's constant, manic, and frustrating tussles with mutant snowpeople, hilarious backyard games, fearless babysitters, and undoubtedly annoying neighbor girls. Calvin and Hobbes ran for ten years, registering for one generation of comics readers a sometimes humble but often wily peek into the mind of a six-year-old.
 |
Original art by Watterson for auction (click to enlarge). |
The piece for auction was the cover for the 1989-1990 Calvin and Hobbes calendar (painted 1988). According to the auctioneers, this illustration (13" x 10") was originally a gift Watterson to comic strip editor and historian Rick Marschall (visible dedication on lower border).
The piece is signed, and the estimated sale price is expected to exceed USD $50,000. The lot will not be available for online bidding (at comics.ha.com) until early February 2012.
Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes has been notoriously absent of any commercial presence, both before and after it's writer and artist closed the strip in 1995. Watterson's aversion to commercialization as brash brand cheapening has long since earned he and his comic a residual cult status apart from his fame for the work itself. This fact has made acquiring officially licensed representations of Calvin, Hobbes, and their many imaginative alter egos flatly impossible. The acquisition of original illustration or watercolor art has been equally difficult, for the more strident Calvin and Hobbes enthusiast.
"It's hard to state exactly how desirable this gorgeous piece of art is to collectors of all sorts, not just those interested in comic art," Todd Hignite, Vice President, Heritage Auctions, commented on the upcoming auction. "This one has it all, truly. It shows Calvin and Hobbes in a rare moment of total peace and repose -- it is the philosophical heart and soul of that great comic -- and now one lucky and determined collector is about to realize a dream held dear by many hardcore collectors and non-collectors alike."
Many of Calvin's adventures began innocently enough: a board game on a Sunday afternoon, a missed homework assignment, a new balloon, or a tented campout in the backyard. But somehow, every single time, things spiral into a comical mess of juvenile mischief; each rung of said spiral more wily and absurd than the last. Calvin and Hobbes' board game turns into genuine fisticuffs over rule making (and rule breaking); the boy's missed homework assignment turns into a philosophical discourse on the duplicitous nature of ambition under pressure; Calvin's new balloon blesses him with gravity-defying prominence; and a Hobbes-aided campout turns into a life or death situation (the bog monster, you see, is lurking about).
 |
Heritage Auction's future sale of Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes watercolor will accompany hundreds of other comic books and illustration art, including original art from Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and graded, early run issues of Action Comics and Fantastic Four.