Independent on Sunday 1,913 by Filbert

This puzzle, which as things stand will be the final Filbert Sunday Indy, is available to solve online or download here.

Hi all.  Three weeks ago in this space I lamented that it would be my last Filbert blog.  Well, for reasons that will become apparent, Pierre graciously agreed to swap and I have snaffled this one.

I had advanced notice that something was up, so when I noticed multiple boys and tigers plus two uses of “mom” in the clues, I did not think that the setter had been uncharacteristically sloppy.  Instead, I thought of a certain boy and his stuffed tiger and wondered if I had hit upon the theme.  Googling my guess together with the first grid entry confirmed it.

Calvin and Hobbes is a comic strip by Bill Watterson about six year-old Calvin and his cuddly tiger companion Hobbes.  I had enough familiarity with it to discern the theme, but not to identify all the thematic content.  Fortunately, Filbert himself was happy to help with the illustrations.  I also had a lot of fun researching, and particularly enjoyed Calvin’s snowmen.  (My favourite of those is probably number 9 here: 10 Darkest Calvin and Hobbes Comics About Snowmen.)

My last in was SPIFF – ah, that boy doing tiger training!  A lovely penny-drop to finish.  The clues are all of course extremely clever, and hopefully enjoyable to solve even without knowledge of the theme.  I hope the cartoons below will help to enhance your appreciation of the puzzle, as they did mine.  I’d intended to prune these to just my favourites with links to the rest, but in the end have just included them all, so I hope you will forgive the extra scrolling.

Thanks to Filbert, for improving so many Sundays and for this final flourish – it’s a magical crossworld!

Definitions are underlined in the clues below.  In the explanations, most quoted indicators are in italics, specified [deletions] are in square brackets, and I’ve capitalised and emboldened letters which appear in the ANSWER.  For clarity, I omit most link words and some juxtaposition indicators.

Across
1a	See unruly boy initially on cart flipped, streaking round (6,6)
	TRACER BULLET — Reversed (… flipped), TELL (see), first letters of (… initially) Unruly Boy, RE (on) and CART
10a	Make cartoon of endlessly manic couple (7)
	ANIMATE — Without outer letters (endlessly) mANIc + MATE (couple)
11a	Comic jump on sleigh ending in catastrophe (3,4)
	BOB HOPE — HOP (jump) on BOB (sleigh) followed by the last letter of (ending in) catastrophE
12a	Twisty sliding on trails around Ohio (9)
	TORSIONAL — An anagram of (sliding) ON TRAILS around O (Ohio)
13a	Stupendous Man a little gingerly opposed to cycling (5)
	GIANT — The first letter of (a little) Gingerly + ANTI (opposed to) with its letters cycling round
14a	Imagine pterodactyl eats without finesse (5)
	INEPT — ImagINE PTerodactyl contains (eats) the answer
15a	Painful blow from cat, with it left in laundry (8)
	WHIPLASH — HIP (with it) and L (left) in WASH (laundry)
18a	Alien son emptied boxes despite what mom said (8)
	SPACEMAN — SoN with the central letter removed (emptied) surrounds (boxes) PACE MA (despite what mom said)
20a	Small boy doing tiger training belted out, “SMARTEN UP” (5)
	SPIFF — S (small) + PI (boy doing tiger training – from Life of Pi) + FF (belted out)
23a	Bedlam as snowball stocks accumulate (5)
	AMASS — BedlAM AS Snowball holds (stocks) the answer
25a	It’s A Magical World that can’t be put down (9)
	NEVERLAND — NEVER (that can’t be) + LAND (put down)
27a	Story of prodigious brat produced in America repeatedly (7)
	AMADEUS — MADE (produced) in A US (America repeatedly)
28a	Traveller’s time elsewhere interrupted by teacher coming over (7)
	TOURIST — T (time) + OUT (elsewhere) with the insertion of (interrupted by) SIR (teacher) reversed (coming over)
29a	Transmogrify mom to reshape faults (12)
	METAMORPHOSE — MOM TO RESHAPE is anagrammed (faults)

Down
2d	Stuffed article is lifelike (9)
	REALISTIC — An anagram of (stuffed) ARTICLE IS
3d	Pristine cold slope (5)
	CLEAN — C (cold) + LEAN (slope)
4d	Drew strips with live large cat rising (9)
	REBELLION — dREw removes its outer letters (strips) with BE (live), L (large) and LION (cat)
5d	Revolting bug an extract from paper lunch container? (5)
	UNBAG — An anagram of (revolting) BUG AN
6d	They’re rough in the bath, spreading flash floods centrally (7)
	LOOFAHS — An anagram of (spreading) FLASH with the middle letters of (… centrally) flOOds
7d	Birdsong way up entertains pair on front of Weirdos From Another Planet (6)
	TWEETS — ST (way) reversed (up) contains (entertains) the first two letters of (pair on front of) WEirdos and ET (From Another Planet)
8d	Club leader cheers, elected with hat on (7)
	CAPTAIN — TA (cheers) and IN (elected) with CAP (hat) on top
9d	Tigerish second character in silly comedy becoming live regularly (6)
	FIERCE — The second character in F[a]RCE (silly comedy) changing to (becoming) alternate letters of (… regularly) lIvE
15d	Sort of snow aimer, one regularly going for people like Susie? (9)
	WOMANISER — An anagram of (sort of) SNOW AIMER
16d	Son wearing close-fitting material raised 18 20’s arms (5,4)
	LASER GUNS — S (son) in (wearing) SNUG (close-fitting) and REAL (material) going upwards (raised). 18a 20a = SPACEMAN SPIFF
17d	Duff toy destroyed at leisure (3-4)
	OFF-DUTY — DUFF TOY anagrammed (destroyed)
19d	Rustic green food mushed up, mutant leaving upset stomach (7)
	PEASANT — PEAS (green food mushed up) + [mut]ANT omitting (leaving) an anagram of (upset) TUM (stomach)
21d	Bicipital iceman keeps leaning to the right (6)
	ITALIC — BicipITAL ICeman holds (keeps) the answer
22d	Boy going around with buddy admitted burning gel (6)
	NAPALM — MAN (boy) reversed (going around) with PAL (buddy) put inside (admitted)
24d	Dad’s initial contribution that might be counted in performance assessment? (5)
	SPERM — A cryptic definition
26d	Woman stitching up tiger, perhaps child’s bloomer (5)
	VETCH — VET (woman stitching up tiger, perhaps) + CH (child)