Twenty years ago, this New Year’s Day, Cartoonist Bill Watterson sent Calvin and Hobbes of to go exploring their magical world and the beloved comic strip came to an end. Twenty years ago. This New Year’s Day. Put on your tin foil hats, because I have a conspiracy theory for you. As some of you comic fans know, after nearly two decades of avoiding public cartooning, Bill Watterson came out of “retirement” to draw the poster for the Stripped documentary, and then did a guest week on the comic Pearls Before Swine. Last summer, I went to a special screening of Dear Mr. Watterson, the unauthorized Calvin and Hobbes documentary. After the show, the theater held a little Q and A session with Joe Wos, who was the director of the Pittsburgh Toonseum at the time. Joe mentioned the recent Watterson cartoons, the poster and the strips, and told us that he suspects Watterson might be staging a comeback. Perhaps his recent public cartoons are his way of warming up. That got me thinking, Watterson’s twentieth anniversary is coming up. If he’s gearing up for something, New Year’s Day would be a good day to launch it. This is a lot of speculation and guesswork, but if these suspicions are correct…it’s going to be an interesting day, isn’t it? Edit: it's January 2, and, as you can see, there was no return of Bill Watterson. Yet. But, hey, Calvin and Hobbes began on November 18, 1985, so maybe something will happen on the 30th anniversary of the premiere, instead of the 20th anniversary of the finale. We'll try this again in 11 months.