40 years ago — on November 18, 1985 — a new comic strip appeared in the newspaper: Calvin and Hobbes.

Hobbes was a stuffed tiger, but in the mind of 6-year-old Calvin he was a wryly observant companion for his day-to-day challenges and wildly imaginative adventures.

Adventures of the beloved duo lasted just a decade. Their creator — cartoonist Bill Watterson — walked away from Calvin and Hobbes at the height of its popularity.

Watterson — who has given few interviews — seamlessly combined the silly, the fantastic and the profound in his strip. That slightly demented quality captured editor Lee Salem, who spoke with NPR's Renee Montagne in 2005.

The following exchange has been edited for length and clarity.

Interview highlights

Lee Salem: I remember it when I first read it, and it all... it literally took my breath away. And I circulated it in the office, and the response was immediate. It was fresh, it was funny, the art was strong, and here's this archetypal little boy living a life that some of us lived or wanted to live or remembered living. ...

One of the single favorites that I have is actually on my wall in the office, and it shows Calvin in bed, obviously with a fever or something. He's got a thermometer in his mouth. You hear the words from a television. He's watching a soap opera — you know, "If you leave your spouse and I'll leave mine and we can get married." And it goes on and on and on, as lurid soap operas sometimes do. And Calvin turns to the reader with a big grin on his face, and he says, "Sometimes, I learn more when I stay home from school than when I go." And I just thought that was so funny. And, amazingly, when it ran, we actually got complaints from readers who said, "Well, you know, you're advocating that children stay home and watch adult soap operas." And somehow, the whole sense of irony was lost in that, but I don't think it was lost on me. I love that strip.

Renee Montagne: You know, I describe him as a little boy with his tiger friend, but there's so much more to it than that. So there's one where they're sitting philosophizing, as they often do, on the grass, this time under a tree. Hobbes is looking at the sky and saying, "Do you think there's a god?" And they're both gazing and thinking, and then in the fourth panel, Calvin thinks about it. And then do you remember what he says?

Salem: Yeah. "Yeah, well, someone is out to get me."

Montagne: Calvin was preceded into existence by some pretty famous little boys: Charlie Brown, Dennis the Menace. What made him different?

Salem: You know, we saw Calvin living in a world he never made, populated by adults and teachers, and he was trying to deal with that and accomplish what he could. I think Calvin has a bit more perhaps Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn in him than Charlie Brown. Hobbes I see almost as the alter ego of Calvin. He's a balancing act that allows Calvin to exist. He provides commentary on some of Calvin's crazy adventures and attitudes.

Montagne: Hobbes goes from being a stuffed tiger when there's any other person in the room, to the real Hobbes we know and love. Is Hobbes real or not?

Salem: He is to me, and obviously he is to Calvin. Whether he is to the other characters or not is an open question. But I think one of the things Bill brought to the art board was this wonderful ability to take a child's imagination and fantasy life and make it real. It really is irrelevant whether Hobbes has an existence as we would define it. For Calvin, he is there. He's a buddy, he's a companion, he's a friend.

Lee Salem edited Calvin and Hobbes until the comic strip ended in 1995. Creator Bill Watterson said at the time that he wanted to explore a canvas beyond the four panels of a daily newspaper, and to work at what he called "a more thoughtful pace," but has produced little public work since then.

Salem died in 2019.