When Bill Watterson Wrote Me a Letter

 

Six months into Bill Watterson's comic strip launch, I wrote him a letter. I asked probably what many people were asking: How do I do what you do? What's the path? And then I suggested we meet. (I had learned he lived nearby. How I got THAT information I don't know.) Anyway, it was 1986 and I was a kid and Calvin and Hobbes was the best new strip out there. I had no idea if he would write back, but in June 1986, he did. Declining my lunch offer, he then went into what he felt the key was in developing a good comic strip: character development. "Just practice, and have a lot of patience, " he wrote. 

I am very fortunate to have become a professional cartoonist. By the next decade, I had done some professional cartooning including a magazine cover and a book. By the 2000s, I was off and running, with lots of clients and I was on the board of the National Cartoonists Society, as well as teaching and lecturing. A big change. Mr. Watterson was right. Patience and persistence were key.

This letter is currently up for auction at ComicLink.