When Calvin and Hobbes went out of print twenty years ago, I think most
people assumed it would return at some point. I know I certainly
did. Calvin and Hobbes was a formative part of my youth – the sly brilliant
writing and stark black and white illustrations providing color to my sense
of childhood wonder and adventure. Watterson had the innate ability to put
on the page something that spoke directly to the brash creative misfit
lurking deep inside of me (or maybe not so deep if my mother is to be
believed), like he was illustrating the comic for an audience of one. With
something so clearly loved by its creator and so personal, I just couldn’t
envision a world where there would be no more new ones. And if Calvin and
Hobbes had been created by anyone other than Bill Watterson, we probably
wouldn’t have heard the last of it. 
— Read on www.thelegalartist.com/blog/on-bill-wattersons-refusal-to-license-calvin-and-hobbes