Posted in: Comics | Tagged: andrew mcmeels, bill watterson, calvin and hobbes, john kascht, the mysteries

Bill Watterson & John Kascht's The Mysteries Picture Book For Adults

It's not a comic book, but it is The Mysteries by Bill Watterson and John Kascht, an illustrated novel for Octover 2023.

Published Wed, 15 Feb 2023 12:18:10 -0600

by Rich Johnston

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Creator of Calvin & Hobbes, Bill Watterson, is creating a new illustrated novel, The Mysteries, with fellow artist John Kascht and published by Andrew McMeels at the end of the year. It is currently the most ordered book on Amazon.

"From Bill Watterson, bestselling creator of the beloved comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, and John Kascht, one of America's most renowned caricaturists, comes a mysterious and beautifully illustrated fable about what lies beyond human understanding. In a fable for grown-ups by cartoonist Bill Watterson, a long-ago kingdom is afflicted with unexplainable calamities. Hoping to end the torment, the king dispatches his knights to discover the source of the mysterious events. Years later, a single battered knight returns. For the book's illustrations, Watterson and caricaturist John Kascht worked together for several years in unusually close collaboration. Both artists abandoned their past ways of working, inventing images together that neither could anticipate—a mysterious process in its own right."

Notably unlike some reports, this is not a comic book, graphic novel or a comic strip, but a 72-page illustrated short story. Consider it a picture book for adults. Syndicated from 1985 to 1995. Bill Watterson stopped drawing Calvin and Hobbes with a short statement to newspaper editors and his readers that he felt he had achieved all he could in the medium.

John Kascht is a caricaturist who has worked the best known newspapers and magazines in America from The New York Times to Rolling Stone, from Esquire to Oprah, and from Vice to MAD Magazine, has been the subject of documentary and is a faculty member of Marywood University's graduate program in Illustration and Design.

Here are some previewed artwork pages.