Although most of Watterson's creative decisions are accepted without question by his many fans, his decision to take his Sunday cartoon layouts "out of the box" created a firestorm among newspaper editors across America.

	Background about the Sunday Strip Controversy

	After Bill Watterson's 1992 sabbatical, he discovered that "Calvin and Hobbes" had become a visually complex comic strip and that the Sunday comic strip format (to which almost every cartoonist is confined) had become too rigid. For Sunday comic strips, a standardized layout is generally used. Basically, the panes which the cartoonist present must be of certain dimensions so that the comic strip panes can be rearranged into different rectangular layouts of two or three rows for display in 1/2, 1/3, or 1/4 of a page. The divisions between the panes are very specific and often times extremely disruptive to the flow of a comic strip. For Watterson, it was often necessary to "eliminate dialogue or simplify drawings so they'd fit in the arbitrary space the format alotted." As a result, Watterson proposed a newly designed comic strip format for "Calvin and Hobbes." The result of this decision however, was that many newspapers no longer had the freedom to rearrange the layout of Watterson's strips. This loss of freedom caused an uproar between Watterson, Universal Press, and many newspapers and other cartoonists. Here are some of the voices from both sides of this dispute.

	Lee SalemEditorial Director, Universal Press Syndicate

	"We did not undertake this lightly. We talked with Bill Watterson at great lengths. He is a man who is very dedicated to his craft, his readers and his principle. Papers have been shrinking Sunday comics for years, we're not forcing anyone to run the strip."

	Rosalie Muller WrightAssistant Editor: San Francisco Chronicle

	"If every syndicate did this, there would be total chaos. I just think it's cavalier of the syndicates to think newspapers can go along with the whims of whoever."

	William BrownExecutive Editor: The Montgomery Advertiser

	"We were going to drop [Calvin and Hobbes]. I mean, out readers might have tarred and feathered me, but I don't think syndicates should dictate editorial content."

	Bill Watterson Cartoonist: Calvin and Hobbes

	"Editors will have to judge for themselves whether 'Calvin and Hobbes' deserves the extra space. If they don't think the strip carries its own weight, they don't have to run it. I'm simply saying that if they want the strip, they can't chop it up and reduce it anymore. I'm trying to give everyone a better strip... Comics have given me a lot of enjoyment and I'd like to return as much of that as I can."