It’s probably just a coincidence, but a few days after the death of notorious recluse J.D. Salinger, another publicity-shy literary giant agreed to be interviewed for the first time in over 20 years. John Campanelli at Cleveland’s The Plain Dealer somehow managed to convince Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson to answer a few questions by e-mail.

In the interview, Watterson makes clear his reasons for ending the mega-popular comic strip:

This isn’t as hard to understand as people try to make it. By the end of 10 years, I’d said pretty much everything I had come there to say.

It’s always better to leave the party early. If I had rolled along with the strip’s popularity and repeated myself for another five, 10 or 20 years, the people now “grieving” for “Calvin and Hobbes” would be wishing me dead and cursing newspapers for running tedious, ancient strips like mine instead of acquiring fresher, livelier talent. And I’d be agreeing with them.

I think some of the reason “Calvin and Hobbes” still finds an audience today is because I chose not to run the wheels off it.

(Could someone maybe forward this interview to the makers of The Simpsons?)

Campanelli himself gets interviewed about the interview by the Washington Post. So how did he manage this journalistic coup? What kind of crazy, Woodstein-esque stunts did he pull to land this most interview-phobic of artists?

I then e-mailed Watterson a list of questions and “ to my complete amazement “ he responded. I’ve never had contact with him before.

Oh.