Once I hit on a tiger, of course, it was great—cats and I have a certain rapport, so this was a very natural fit for me. Maybe Hobbes could have been some other animal, but he arrived as a big cat, and that expanded my connection with him. Hobbes was as much my alter-ego as Calvin was.

Bill Watterson gave a rare interview as part of a career retrospective, and apparently it’s only available in bound print. The The Washington Post has a brief excerpt, though.