Bill Watterson stopped drawing “Calvin and Hobbes” in late 1995. Everybody noticed.

Dan and Tom Heyerman stopped drawing “Pants are Overrated” late in 2011. I noticed.

The Heyermans’ online comic strip was about two brothers who know much too much about each other (not surprising, since Dan and Tom are in fact, brothers), who get comfortable by throwing off their office clothes — especially pants — and spend time having wonderfully meaningless, insignificant adventures.

Dan, for example, would fall in love not with a girl but with his Canon camera and try to kiss it on the lens when his brother isn’t looking. That kind of thing.

The strip was fun — actually pretty good — and then one day, out of the blue, they concocted something that made me gasp. They decided to update Watterson’s “Calvin and Hobbes” strip, by imagining Calvin as a grown-up, 26 years after his being 6. That would make him 32, And in their imaginations, he’s married the girl up the block, Susie Derkins, and they now have a little girl. Her name is Bacon.

Glorious, wonderful stuff.

Read the rest here: npr.org

The earlier column is here: npr.org