Look I wasn't expecting little boys and tigers and I know he's supposed to be something of an odd duck but seriously what in the world is this book?

Growing up is always a loss—a loss of an enchanted way of seeing, at the very least—and for some people growing up is more of a loss than for others. I've now read this book a couple dozen times and those six words are sure to be quoted over and over again in coming years. This book is 72 pages and the text is only 43 sentences—two of those sentences just two words—which I know because I counted.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.

Hopefully it won't take him another 30 years to follow this up with a Jazz record, a contemporary art exhibition, or a performance piece at the MoMA. If there is a connection to Watterson’s past work, it’s that he made something that’s seemingly for children but speaks to adults. A master of the form, he has caricatured thousands of famous faces for magazines, newspapers and Broadway marquees. In the fall, a leaf pile transforms into a Calvin-eating monster; in winter, Calvin sculpts a snowman swimming away from snow-shark fins; spring is rainy, and in summer the days are just packed.

It would be oversimplifying to say that Herriman’s background fuelled “Krazy Kat,” just as it would be oversimplifying to say that Schulz was forever a Charlie Brown—but it would be delusional to think that the persistent situations and sentiments of those comics weren’t inflected by their makers’ lives.