Sometime in the 80s while the strip was still running (and I was probably 10 or 11), I attended a talk by Bill Watterson at the Akron Art Museum. He looked asto

Sometime in the 80s while the strip was still running (and I was probably 10 or 11), I attended a talk by Bill Watterson at the Akron Art Museum. He looked astonishingly like Calvin's dad! Over the course of about an hour he drew all the different characters he had tried before Calvin and Hobbes. One was a hedgehog that looked like a short Hobbes. What struck me the most was that he had tried over and over before he hit on Calvin and Hobbes. At the end, I walked up and introduced myself and asked if I could have one of the drawings. The answer was no. He was already very careful. I lived in Hudson, Ohio and he donated a signed book to the library auction at least once. I'm pretty sure I once saw him sitting in the lawn at Western Reserve Academy drawing.