William " Bill " Boyd Watterson II ( born July 5, 1958 ) is an American cartoonist and the author of the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, which was syndicated from 1985 to 1995.

Watterson stopped drawing Calvin and Hobbes at the end of 1995 with a short statement to newspaper editors and his readers that he felt he had achieved all he could in the medium.

Later, when Watterson was creating names for the characters in his comic strip, he allegedly decided upon Calvin ( after the Protestant reformer John Calvin ) and Hobbes ( after the social philosopher Thomas Hobbes ) as a " tip of the hat " to the political science department at Kenyon.

In " The Complete Calvin And Hobbes ," Watterson does not name the inspiration for Calvin's character, but he does say Calvin is named for " a 16th-century theologian who believed in predestination ," and Hobbes for " a 17th-century philosopher with a dim view of human nature.

" There seems to be little doubt that this could only be John Calvin and Thomas Hobbes, respectively.

He designed grocery advertisements for four years prior to creating Calvin and Hobbes.

" Calvin and Hobbes was first published on November 18, 1985.

In Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book, he wrote that his influences included Charles Schulz for Peanuts ; Walt Kelly for Pogo and George Herriman for Krazy Kat.

He refused to merchandise his creations on the grounds that displaying Calvin and Hobbes images on commercially sold mugs, stickers and T-shirts would devalue the characters and their personalities.

Despite this, many knockoffs have been found, including college T-shirts which show Calvin and Hobbes binge drinking or Calvin urinating on a logo.

Watterson announced the end of Calvin and Hobbes on November 9, 1995, with the following letter to newspaper editors:

The last strip of Calvin and Hobbes was published on December 31, 1995.

Since the conclusion of Calvin and Hobbes, Watterson has taken up painting, at one point drawing landscapes of the woods with his father.

Watterson has kept away from the public eye and has given no indication of resuming the strip, creating new works based on the characters, or embarking on other projects, though he has published several anthologies of Calvin and Hobbes strips.

He drew a new Calvin and Hobbes cover for that issue of the magazine as well.

In the years that followed the end of Calvin and Hobbes, there were many attempts to locate Watterson in his home town of Chagrin Falls.

In early 2010, Watterson was interviewed by The Plain Dealer on the 15th anniversary of the end of Calvin and Hobbes.

His syndicate, which has since become Universal Uclick, has said that the painting was the first new artwork from Watterson that the syndicate has seen since Calvin and Hobbes ended in 1995.

After his sabbatical year in 1991 he managed to gain an exception to these constraints for Calvin and Hobbes, allowing him to draw his Sunday strip the way he wanted.

* Bill Watterson, creator of beloved ' Calvin and Hobbes ' comic strip looks back with no regrets 2010 interview by John Campanelli, The Plain Dealer

Opus won that same privilege years after Calvin and Hobbes ended, while Wiley Miller circumvented further downsizings by making his Non Sequitur Sunday strip available only in an extremely vertical ( near-page-long ) arrangement.

* In the comic strip, Calvin and Hobbes: Weirdos From Another Planet!

The fictional game Calvinball, played by the main characters in the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, is sometimes compared to Nomic.

The famous comic strip Calvin and Hobbes features Calvin and his stuffed tiger, Hobbes.

* November 18 – The comic strip Calvin and Hobbes debuts in 35 newspapers.

One example is that the Calvin & Hobbes comic strip ( written by Bill Waterson ) includes in its scenario a children's book Hamster Huey & The Gooey Kablooie, and Bill Waterson stated in The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book that he believed that Hamster Huey & The Gooey Kablooie should remain an undefined story, left to the reader's imagination ; but someone not associated with the strip published Hamster Huey & The Gooey Kablooie in the real world.

With respect to Jason Kapalka's gag writing, the real jumping-off point for " Space Moose " is the ingenious " Calvin and Slobbes ," the first strip of 1990-91.

The syndicate desired to have a comic strip featuring the character ; they had asked Bill Watterson to incorporate the character into Calvin and Hobbes, but Watterson refused.

* G. R. O. S. S., a club in the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip

It was also referenced in a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, and the 1966 Stan Freberg comedy album Freberg Underground.

In a 1990 article which reviewed various then-current comic strips, Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly gave FoxTrot a " B " rating, calling it " the most idiosyncratic comic strip to debut since Calvin and Hobbes " and describing the Fox family as " believable.

* Moe, a secondary character in the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes

The phrase also appears in Bill Waterson's comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, in which Calvin inquires of Hobbes what the meaning of the phrase is.

On May 10, 1924, President Calvin Coolidge appointed Hoover as the sixth director of the Bureau of Investigation, following President Warren Harding's death and in response to allegations that the prior director, William J. Burns, was involved in the Teapot Dome scandal.

In fall of that year, Schreiber directed and starred in the " 2006 Join the Fight " AIDS PSA campaign for Cable Positive and Kismet Films ( others involved with the campaign included actress Naomi Watts, fashion designer Calvin Klein, and playwright Tony Kushner ).

John Calvin was also urged to come to England by Cranmer, but declined, saying that he was too involved in the Swiss reforms.

A large team of chemists from many institutions were involved, including Calvin Souther Fuller of Bell Labs.

Tryon was also involved in a relationship with Calvin Culver, also known as Casey Donovan, a gay porn star.

Martin has since been involved in many other projects ( such as the Tony Martin Band, M3, The Alliance, Misha Calvin, The Cage, Giuntini Project ( band ), Phenomena's Psychofantasy album ).

While Oxford was under house arrest in May, Thomas Stocker dedicated to him his Divers Sermons of Master John Calvin, stating in the dedication that he had been " brought up in your Lordship's father's house ".

By September 1538 Calvin had taken up his new position in Strasbourg, fully expecting that this time it would be permanent ; a few months later, he applied for and was granted citizenship of the city.

A plan was drawn up in which Viret would be appointed to take temporary charge in Geneva for six months while Bucer and Calvin would visit the city to determine the next steps.

" When the inquisitor-general of France learned that Servetus was hiding in Vienne, according to Calvin under an assumed name, he contacted Cardinal François de Tournon, the secretary of the archbishop of Lyon, to take up the matter.

Maitland told Knox to refrain from stirring up emotions over Mary's insistence on having mass celebrated and he quoted from Martin Luther and John Calvin about obedience to earthly rulers.

Calvin Dean, the actor from the film Tormented grew up in Polruan.

, the city council is made up of Jim Dodd, Max Mulkey, Larry Rogers and Calvin Watts.

This change was soon picked up by Huguenot writers, who began to expand on Calvin and promote the idea of the sovereignty of the people, ideas to which Catholic writers and preachers responded fiercely.

Whittingham was one of those appointed to draw up a service-book, and he procured a letter from John Calvin, dated 18 January 1555, which won over some ; but the compromise adopted was disturbed by the arrival of Richard Cox, who was an uncompromising champion of the prayer-book.

In the Protestant Christian tradition, John Calvin saw conscience as a battleground: "[...] the enemies who rise up in our conscience against his Kingdom and hinder his decrees prove that God's throne is not firmly established therein ".

One of the suspects ' supporters, Reverend Calvin O. Butts of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, told the New York Times, " The first thing you do in the United States of America when a white woman is raped is round up a bunch of black youths, and I think that's what happened here.

Upon returning to Olympia, Hanna began collaborating with fellow Evergreen student and punk zinester Tobi Vail after seeing a performance of The Go Team, ( a band made up of Vail, Billy Karren, and Calvin Johnson ) and recognizing Vail as the mastermind behind the fanzine Jigsaw, which Hanna greatly admired and loved.

Once Calvin picks Ricky up from the jail, Ricky is angry at his cousin for betraying him and wants to kill him!

Calvin gives Ricky a gun he found that fell out of Ricky's locker at the shop, and is disappointed that Ricky is going to end up right back in jail.

While watering flowers outside the school one day in 1903, she happened to look up at the open window of Robert N. Weir's boardinghouse and caught a glimpse of Calvin Coolidge shaving in front of a mirror with nothing on but long underwear and a hat.

Calvin Coolidge summed up his marriage to Grace in his autobiography: " For almost a quarter of a century she has borne with my infirmities, and I have rejoiced in her graces.

Eight years have gone by since divorced father Scott Calvin ( Tim Allen ) first took up the Santa Claus suit, and became subject to The Santa Clause.

He also comes up with the idea of a beach-scented cologne in " The Pez Dispenser ", but a marketing executive for Calvin Klein tells him the idea is ridiculous.

It is then up to US Robots ' Chief Robopsychologist Dr. Susan Calvin, and Mathematical Director Peter Bogert, to find it.

Marty, using the anachronistic name " Calvin Klein ," also managed to get on the wrong side of Biff by standing up to him.

So, in the spring of 1956, he raised $ 63, 000 with the help of other local businessmen in Kansas City, decided his first teen film would be about troubled teens, thought up a title for it and nothing else, and hired local filmmaker Robert Altman ( who knew Rhoden Jr. casually and had been directing industrial films and documentaries for the local Calvin Company ) to write and direct the film.

Altman's film crew was made up mostly of his Calvin co-workers.

The 2011 line up included The Chemical Brothers, Kanye West, Rodrigo Y Gabriela, Jessie J, Robert Plant, Calvin Harris, Aloe Blacc, Chipmunk, Katy B & Example.