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  10 x 13 inches

In the early 1990s, famed cartoonist, Bill Watterson – creator of Calvin and Hobbes – fought for a free-form, unbreakable layout for the Sunday edition of his strip. At that time, the format for Sunday cartoons was a fixed, six-panel arrangement, designed to allow for greatest syndication. But while this was flexible in terms of sales, it was rigid and constricting to the artists.

Watterson believed that the storytelling and the graphics should drive the layout rather than the formula dictating the narrative. For this reason, he called for a totally open area that could not be trimmed, cropped, or manipulated. The editors opposed Watterson’s demands at first, but eventually, a compromise was reached, and the adventures of the beloved characters Calvin and Hobbes were able to expand to new realms of imagination.

As a kid, I always looked forward to the Sunday edition of our newspaper cartoons. The characters were larger, bolder; the stories more fleshed out; and of course, they were in color. I knew nothing of Watterson’s battle with the syndicate, but as a fan, I knew that the Sunday edition was spectacular and imaginative.

Like a cartoon strip, a Boy and his Tiger is a work built from segments; blocks that, when pieced together, illustrate a brief scene offering a window into the imagination. Some of the imagery overlaps or extends beyond the borders. Some are short and distinct. At times, the characters can be playful and at others, sentimental. They can be moody or mischievous, giddy or goofy, bashful or brash. But always, the boy and his tiger were sincere and true to themselves.