Bill Watterson, the man responsible for a decade of Calvin & Hobbes comics, is coming out of retirement for a new illustrated storybook, The Mysteries, that is set to release this October. Just in time for spooky season.

Starting in 1985, Watterson wrote and drew Calvin and Hobbes, a comedic and sometimes heartwarming newspaper comic series about a young boy and his imaginary tiger, until abruptly ending the strip in 1995. At the time, the series was hugely popular, so it came as a shock to many that he was done with it. In 2010, he explained in a rare interview that after a decade of writing and drawing the strip he had said “pretty much everything” he wanted to and that it was “always better to leave the party early.” Since then he’s mostly stayed out of the public eye and has done very few projects—the most notable and most recent was a three-day guest run on the comic Pearls Before Swine in 2014.

However, the reclusive and legendary comic creator is coming out of retirement for a big and surprising new project, an illustrated storybook aimed at adults. To help him create this book, officially titled The Mysteries, Watterson has partnered with caricaturist John Kascht. Here’s the publisher-provided synopsis for the book:

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.

According to the book’s publisher, Simon and Schuster, the two artists have been working on the book for years in “unusually close collaboration” with them trying out new ways to work and create images, calling the whole process “mysterious…in its own right.”

so

was no one going to tell me Bill Watterson had finally written a new book?

my sister found it in a bookstore yesterday and bought it for me. The first line of the short story felt like coming home and for some reason it almost made me cry with relief and loneliness and longing. It took me forever to turn the page because I was savoring it.

It's not Calvin and Hobbes and the art is by John Kascht and yet it is so very distinctly Bill Watterson that there was no mistaking the writing.

It was like catching a scent while walking through a place you've never been and yet recognizing it and immediately feeling young and imprinted with a memory you can't remember, only feel.

Especially the end.

Gang, after all this very long time, there's a new Bill Watterson book out. It's called The Mysteries. It is not Calvin and Hobbes. It is still very entirely Bill Watterson.

That's right, Bill Watterson, who pretty much disappeared off the face of the earth ever since Calvin and Hobbes ended in 1995, is coming back with a new graphic novel.

I can't even begin to describe how world-changing this news is, guys.

The urge to rewatch/catch up on Detective Conan is making me claw at my own cheeks

the fact that we- humans and actually the whole planet we live on doesn't even constitutes 1% of the universe and that this universe keeps expanding with the speed more than of our heartbeat, scares me to the moon and back

Dying to yourself (going to the underworld and receiving the mysteries)

my copy of the mysteries arrives tomorrow! ٩(^ᴗ^)۶

Aelles Tau Mystaras

Today I will jump ahead a bit as today is Holy Day. Precisely, today is the holiday called Shae vo Tau Mystaras {Day of The Mysteries} More commonly called Tau Mystaras.

The Mysteries are celebrated on the days of April 15th-17th. While some think the holiday is just celebrated for and by Mysts {witches} the holiday is really devoted to all worshipers. It's a most divine holiday. A time of rest, meditation, cleansing, looking inward and reflecting on one's faith. It is a time when people spend the 3 days at their home altars, shrines and reading their codex. Many like to just use the day and spend it in silence, in vigil, prayer. The days are used to clean one's shrines, altars, religious tools, divination tools. Those that attend groves will find the areas incased with plumes of incense. Bathhouses, saunas and Taranoms {sweathouses} are in wide use when they too are not being cleansed and cleaned.

Religiously, Tau Mystaras is dedicated to the gods Mystara and Ehlrik. Mystara being the goddess of Magic and Ehlrick, the god of shamanism and bards. At least they are the main focus, but all Bowynn gods are deeply respected this holiday. Tsa'heka-non {100-fold} bundles of incense are burned these days as offerings, mass libations of milk, water, juice and wine are gifted, grosses of flowers, plants, garlands and wreathes if bestowed to the gods, whole dinners are cooked for the holy family.

For Mysts and those that practice the arts of magic and shamanism; the holiday is especially celebrated as a great time of cleanings and is the date new initiates are blessed and welcomes into groves and temples. It is also the most sacred day to consult priests and priestesses for wisdom and consult oracles. Many will spend the days is deep though over tools of divination. And spells are cast endlessly on these 3 days. Nights of great divination practices, spell casting and a day for new practitioners to start.

Traditionally 7 candles are burned during these 3 days in reverence for the gods. And the colors of Black, Purple, White and Gold are displayed. Wreathes and garlands are hung up on and around doors in homes and temples. Soft religious music is played. Fasting is common but not culturally nor religiously demanded. But the abstinence of a frivolous foods of some sort is common: Coffee, Sugar, Alcohol, Candy, Pastry. It is up to the person.

Personally, I like to just use the day in prayers and to read my codex. I may do a divination reading. I spend the first day, cleansing my home, altar and take a LONG soak in the tub. I spend the second day in deep reverence and vigil and depending on the weather, I may take a long walk. Day 3 I like to do some spell casting and take a second soaking. Sometimes I will make special herbal cookies are a lemon cake. And I do make an offerings of the 7 Sacred Offerings (Meat, Vegetation, Incense, Herbs, Fire, Libation and Votives). If I am up for it, I will even spend time crafting and drawing something divine or magically in nature. And incense is always burning. And I normally will fast the first two days and day three I FEAST! LOL.

Aelles Tau Mystaras {Happy Holiday}

Preview pages from (I can’t believe I get to type his name here) Bill Watterson and John Kascht’s The Mysteries, coming October 2023.

"Tableau by Da Vinci. #lastsupper" / "Tableau by Colin Waitt." / "Tableau by Eliza Simpson."

Ooo... something new coming from the Calvin and Hobbes guy. I want it, sight unseen.

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.  With The Mysteries, Watterson and Kascht share the fascinating genesis of their extraordinary collaboration in a video that can be viewed on Andrews McMeel Publishing's YouTube page. 

this is on amazon ... but for more, read the new yorker magazine and goodreads and many various book reviews ... <3

Bill Watterson! His new book, The Mysteries— a collaboration with his friend and fellow artist John Kascht— is out now. The video narrates their process for creating a book that fuses their nearly-irreconcilably different styles and approaches to creative work.

Self Love Altar & Dedication to Hecate

👁🕸🕷🐦‍⬛🪺🍂❤️‍🔥❤️🌹🥀

Went theory/lore hunting with @fluo-skeletons and came up with something very interesting

Context