All those Calvin and Hobbes fans who can't begin a day without a new dose of the antics of the comic-page character and his "real" stuffed tiger are in for a panic attack. For nine months beginning Sunday, May 5, Calvin and Hobbes fans will have to settle for strips from 1985, its first year. Bill Watterson, the reclusive creator of the popular strip, is taking a sabbatical. Time off for comic-strip creators, virtually unheard of over the years, has become a regular thing, with Garry Trudeau taking time off from his Pulitzer Prize-winning Doonesbury and Gary Larson from his wacky, successful The Far Side.

Virtually an instant hit when it began in November 1985, Calvin and Hobbes appears in some 1,100 newspapers, while several book collections of the series regularly top the bestseller lists with more than 12 million books in print. In a quote released by Watterson's syndicator, Universal Press Syndicate, he said: "Had I imagined Calvin and Hobbes would last this long, I would have paced myself. The strip requires a great deal of research and I need to do more interplanetary exploration..."