I’m not sure how I never saw this until now.

Every few days, I mourn the passing, in 1995, of Bill Watterson’s “Calvin and Hobbes” newspaper comic strip.

I post Calvin strips every once in a while here.

But not until today did I see a reference to “Hobbes and Bacon,” a totally unofficial sequel to Watterson’s great work.

In 2011, the web-based comic “Pants Are Overrated” did a series of four “Hobbes and Bacon” strips that visits, more than two decades later, the household of grown-up Calvin and Susie, their daughter Francis Bacon and, of course, tiger Hobbes.

The strips are wonderfully clever and nostalgic and guaranteed to bring a tear or two to your eye even while they’re making you smile.

And in light of the many, many, many bootleg and offensive rip-offs of Calvin, I’m guessing the famously reclusive Watterson wouldn’t terribly mind these tributes to his characters.