Bill Watterson dusts off the cobwebs for ‘Stripped’ documentary poster

(CBR) “Calvin & Hobbes” creator Bill Watterson has stayed out of the public eye since he ended the popular strip in 1995, but he”s back this week with a rare new piece of art: the poster for the documentary “Stripped”. It”s his first published cartoon in nearly two decades.

Watterson also did a rare audio interview for the film about comic strips that features interviews with more than 60 creators. “Stripped” is being made by webcomics creator Dave Kellett and filmmaker Frederick Schroeder, and it was Kellett who asked Watterson if he would make the poster. “Dave sent me a rough cut of the film and I dusted the cobwebs off my ink bottle,” Watterson told Michael Cavna of The Washington Post.

“Given the movie”s title and the fact that there are few things funnier than human nudity, the idea popped into my head largely intact,” the cartoonist said. “The film is a big valentine to comics, so I tried to do something really cartoon-y. I had thought of having it colored with off-registered printing dots like newspaper comics, but Dave asked if I”d paint it instead, and I think he made the right call.”

This is Watterson”s second publicly released work of art since 1995; in 2011 he created a painting of Richard Thompson”s character Petey Otterloop, which was sold for $13,000 at the benefit auction for Team Cul de Sac, which supports research into Parkinson”s disease.

An exhibit of original work by Watterson and Thompson will open in March at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum at the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio.

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