Cartooning was a way of life for Bill Watterson. As a child, he read and studied the comics pages. He drew cartoons in school on the edges of his notebooks. He drew them on the bathroom walls and for the school yearbook. He drew cartoons for his college newspaper for four years.
William B. Watterson was born on July 05, 1958 in Washington, DC to parents Jim and Kathryn. He grew up in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. His father is a patent lawyer, his mother a Township Trustee. He received his BA in Political Science from Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio in 1980. He is married to Melissa and they enjoy life in a century house in an undisclosed village somewhere in the USA.
After graduation, Bill got a job as an editorial cartoonist for the Cincinnati Post. The job lasted only a couple of months. He found he was not interested in political cartooning and enjoyed the comics much more. A job as layout artist for a tabloid shopper, designing car and grocery ads in a windowless basement of a convenience store provided essential income. He hated it and considered himself and co-workers prisoners, just waiting for the last second on the time clock to click before escaping each day.
Bill submitted many comic strips to the big syndicates over a five-year period. He was not one to give up from rejections. Calvin and Hobbes first showed up as lesser characters in another strip sent to United Features. The syndicate suggested that the pair be the main focus. Bill found that the duo worked well for him almost right away and that he was comfortable working with them. He submitted the new comics for approval. Unfortunately (for United Features), they declined the strip anyway. Bill sent it to Universal, where the strip was accepted for syndication in 1985.
Calvin and Hobbes has brought several awards to Bill Watterson. He was the youngest cartoonist to win the Reuben Award for "Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year" in 1986. He won the Reuben again in 1988 and was nominated again in 1992.
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