When Walt Horton came to Bermuda with his family in the mid-1970s, it was as a missionary, but along the way he carved out a career as a professional cartoonist, and his distinctive style became very well known.

Among the highlights of his creative career were Lenny the Longtail; a Bermuda calendar based on the life of a hog; and illustrations for the popular book, 'Cricket, The Offside', whose definitions of the game were written by Llewellyn Emery, author of 'Nothin' but a Pond Dog' and 'Fires of Pembroke'.

In fact, the Horton-Emery collaboration continued through many successful projects, and blossomed into a long-standing friendship. Recently, the two were reunited during one of Mr. Horton's return trips to the Island with his family, and they spent many happy hours together reminiscing. With Cup Match in the offing, talk naturally got around to the book that started as a whim and ended up selling 11,000 copies.

"Walt (who knew nothing about cricket) heard some of the commentary on the radio and started laughing. I told him there were lots of funny terms in the game and suggested he could come up with some great cartoons," Mr. Emery remembers.

"Do you think you could come up with 12 expressions that I could illustrate?" Mr. Horton enquired.

"Twelve?" his friend exclaimed. "We could come up with about 50!"

And so the book was born. Today, 'Cricket, The Offside' book is no longer in print, and its creators admit that, good as sales were, they could have done even better were it not for their naivete as publishers. Nonetheless, they retain fond memories of its production.

"We argued for the longest time over whose name would come first on the cover and in the end we flipped a coin," Mr. Horton remembers. "Also, Llew would threaten to take everything to the printer himself if I didn't stop 'improving' each cartoon."

Asked if they would consider collaborating on another book, the duo acknowledged that self-publishing was an expensive proposition, something which is also holding back Mr. Emery's desire to become a full time author.

"It is hard for writers in Bermuda, and we don't have that energy now. The late Kevin Stevenson had a real passion for that. I would love to write for a living but the way the whole thing is here it doesn't look likely unless I can get connected with an international publishing house that pays you in advance for your work and then invests in the publishing of the book," Mr. Emery says.

Meanwhile, the popular local author is a full-time producer of fine cedar work, including lamps, candle sticks, bowls and objects, while Mr. Horton has put cartooning aside, and is now making a name for himself as a professional sculptor in Colorado, where he lives with his family. The career switch began when he walked into a gallery in Aspen one day, where Bermudian sculptor Desmond Fountain's work was being shown.

"I can do that," Mr. Horton said to himself, and the gallery subsequently invited him to "put some clay together and send in some photographs".

"A year later they were talking about naming the gallery after me! I was their top-selling artist," the former cartoonist says. "Then other galleries started seeing my work, and now I am showing in galleries all over the country. For three years running I have also been the top-selling sculptor in the largest sculpture show in the world, so sculpture is what I should have been doing a long time ago."

In fact, Mr. Horton claims American sculptor Dan Chester French, creator of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, as a relative.

"He is considered by many to be the greatest sculptor of all time, and he also did 'The Minute Man' in New England," he says.

Seemingly following in Mr. French's footsteps, one of Mr. Horton's sculptures - 'Repentance' - has also become well-known, not only in America but also in Japan. It tells the story of a little boy out hunting in the woods and the bear he encounters there.

"It is an eight-foot grizzly bear with an arrow dangling out of its butt and a four-year-old (North American) Indian boy who is holding a bow behind his back. It is a huge monument which many think is the most photographed piece of the decade," he says. "When you do a bronze you do an edition, so I did an edition of 12 monuments which are now in the US and Japan. The original edition of this piece sold for $26,000, and on the resale market the maquetes (miniatures) are selling for $2,000. In fact, 'Repentance' built us our home in the most beautiful valley in Colorado. That was my first really big sculpture, and on my website (walt-horton.com) people can see my next piece, which is now going to be called 'Great Expectations', and is of a bull moose and a little boy with a pop gun."

Some of Mr. Horton's work can be seen locally at the Windjammer Gallery.

Meanwhile, Mr. Emery is having great success with his cedar work sales. He has also exhibited in a solo show at the Masterworks gallery, and participated in the Smithsonian Exhibitions in Washington and Bermuda.

Now the two are thinking of combining their artistic talents to hold a joint exhibition of their work in Bermuda sometime in the future, and a revised edition of the popular hog calendar is also being talked about for next year.

Mr. Horton may be contacted by e-mail: walthorton@hotmail.com