"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us."

Now, Mysteries is a really well-done little comic fable. You'll read it in 10 minutes, 20 if you really want to get lost in the illustrations, and think about it for a while after that. But it's hard to pretend that one of the reasons you'll think about it isn't that this is the first new work by Bill Watterson (one or two guest spots on other comic strips excepted) in almost 30 years, so it has some big shoes to fill. And what we get is... a story that's not entirely a comfortable read. OK, it's not the sort of story to make you question everything you've ever known, but it's not curl-up-in-front-of-the-fireplace-with-a-stuffed-tiger comfortable.

But then again, that's not all Calvin & Hobbes was either. I've seen some reviews here that complain of this being nihilistic, pessimistic or misanthropic. I'm not sure it is. Yes, it's a story about the insignificance of man and our attempts to understand and fix everything. But... it's still the same old woods behind the house. And while the book leaves it unsaid, I choose to think the missing story here is