Thanks for the ping! When Walt Kelly passed, the loss of Pogo left a huge hole in the funny papers that seemed impossible to fill. Then we were blessed with Calvin, Bloom County, and Far Side and for several years the funnies were a daily dose of inspiration. Then disaster upon disaster, Watterson, Breathed, and Larson left us with an even bigger hole never to be filled. Todays papers have several features that are slowly developing into classics and while nothing replaces Calvin & Hobbes, I still have hope.
About Watterson, I've always thought of licensing as his 2nd peeve. His big protest was against the shrinking size the papers alloted the strips.