Bill Watterson Returns to Comics with “Grown Up” Graphic Novel

Bill Watterson’s Calvin & Hobbes series is one of the most well known comic strips around. Even though it went out of publication in 1995 and Watterson retired (mostly), the strip has managed to live on thanks to being frequently reprinted consistently over the decades.

For the first time in nearly 30 years, Watterson is coming back to the graphic novel space with his new book, The Mysteries. Revealed earlier in the week, Watterson collaborated on the book with caricaturist John Kascht. Billed as “a fable for grown ups,” its plot revolves around a kingdom that’s become home to frequent disasters. Desperate for an end to the calamities, the king enlists his knights to go in search of the source for all these events, and years later, only a single knight returns to tell the tale.

Since this is Watterson’s first big project in decades, The Mysteries is something of a big deal, and Watterson and Kascht seem to understand that. In its online description, there’s a brief mention on how the pair worked together for years in what was called an “unusually close collaboration. Both artists abandoned their past ways of working, inventing images together that neither could anticipate—a mysterious process in its own right.” Sounds quite ominous, and more than a little intriguing.

The Mysteries will release on October 10, and Polygon has a look at some of the interior pages for the 72-page story. With a storybook format and Kascht’s caricature style, it definitely looks like its own distinct things from Calvin & Hobbs, and one to pay attention to in the coming months.

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