While Calvin & Hobbes ranks among the all-time great comic strips ever published, creator Bill Watterson once revealed he was inspired by another famous cartoonist, Peanuts' Charles Schulz. Watterson has made it no secret that he considers Schulz and his work on his own iconic series as one of his primary inspirations. However, thanks to a letter from Schulz himself to a young Watterson, the cartoonist was motivated to start a career in the comic industry.
In The Calvin & Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book by Bill Watterson, the cartoonist went over what inspired him to start drawing. Watterson said that Charles Schulz' Peanuts was among the first things he'd ever read, and once he saw the adventures starring Charlie Brown and Snoopy, he knew he wanted to be a cartoonist. As a fourth-grader, Watterson would write a letter to Schulz, as the legendary cartoonist responded to the youngster, serving as a significant motivator for his later career.
In 1968, Charles Schulz responded to a young Bill Watterson, who told the Peanuts' creator about his dream to become a cartoonist like him. Schulz wrote a letter in an envelope with Snoopy and Charlie Brown on it and addressed it to Watterson. In the response, he thanked Watterson for taking the time to write him a letter. He wrote he was "pleased to know that you enjoy the comic strip so much" and hoped he would continue to read it for many years. Schulz signed the letter, which resurfaced decades after it was initially sent to the Calvin & Hobbes creator.
While Schulz was the primary inspiration for Bill Watterson, the legendary Calvin & Hobbes creator revealed two other strips that were "tremendously inspirational" for him. He listed Krazy Kat by George Herriman and Pogo by Walt Kelly as two other strips that taught him about how to write and draw comic strips. However, Charles Schulz's Peanuts was the strip that made him want to start his own comic and become a cartoonist.
While the note from Charles Schulz might have featured a pre-written remark, as the Peanuts' cartoonist likely got thousands of letters every year and gave the same general response to all of them, the message was clearly important to a young Bill Watterson and helped inspire his career as a cartoonist. However, It's unlikely Schulz knew at the time he was writing back to a youngster who would one day create something just as influential as his own comic strip with Calvin & Hobbes.
