The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes
By Bill Watterson

When I was 21, in my junior year at Juilliard, I had a complete breakdown. I had to leave school, and I couldn't work. I couldn't focus on anything. My mother came to see me and for some reason brought a Calvin and Hobbes collection. It was the first thing I was able to focus on, and, in some strange therapeutic way, it got my mind off my problems. I found such simple joy in this precocious, hysterical yet sweet six-year-old kid and his adventures with his stuffed animal, Hobbes. It was a glimmer of hope that I was coming out of the depression. I wish I could say it was a more profound book, but it was Calvin and Hobbes.