I'm a huge Calvin & Hobbes fan. As flagamuffin says, it's his capacity to understand childhood. But it goes beyond that. Watterson is a master of his craft, in my opinion nobody else even comes close to him. To better explain this, I'm going to use the last strip of Calvin & Hobbes. On one hand, a child reading this would relate to playing outside in the snow, and the fact there are endless possibilities during the winter. It's all up to the child's creativity and imagination as to what can be done with a fresh winters snow. But, as I reread this as a late-teenager, I realized that this strip has much more depth to it. This isn't just about winter, it's about Wattersons life. He's closing a huge chapter of it with this single strip, and I would say that he is relishing that opportunity and expressing it in such a simple and elegant way that it is beautiful. Without the stigma and daily work of Calvin & Hobbes, his life would be full of possibilities. At least that's what I got out of it. There's a subtext to a lot of these strips, and yeah, I love them.