Throughout the early 1980s Bill Watterson pitched syndicates several ideas for comic strips. Of the various strips he developed, the most significant was In the Dog House, later reworked and retitled Fernbusterville, a comic strip about a man in his twenties named Sam and his slacker friend, Fester. Of particular interest, however, was Sam’s younger brother, Marvin, who owned a stuffed tiger named Hobbes. Incorporating feedback from United Features Syndicate, Watterson dropped the other characters and made the boy and his tiger the stars of a new strip, fleshing out their personalities and rechristening Marvin as Calvin, thus creating Calvin and Hobbes. Watterson also drew inspiration from George Herriman’s Krazy Kat, Walt Kelly’s Pogo, and Charles Schulz’s Peanuts, among other precursors.
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