Extremely entertaining, found a way to ope peoples' minds to the wider world without getting overly political in one direction or the other, and an artstyle that was both simple and complex depending on the action of the strip. It might not have lasted for decades like many other strips, but that's probably one of the reasons it'll be remembered long after Watterson's passing, because he made the comic on his time and left when he felt he had said all that he could.