"This "Who's the Boss" Reboot is Gettin' Weird," in Cardboard, by Doug TenNapel
It turns out, if you give people cardboard that brings to life whatever you make from it, some people will abuse that power. Shocking, I know.
Like most of TenNapel's work, it's a mixture of the fantastic and mundane. Mostly people trying to use the fantastic to avoid dealing with their mundane problems. That never seems to actually work. That's what recreational drug use is for, after all.
So the full-size version of the guy with cardboard spit is Mike, an out-of-work carpenter still emotionally shut down after the death of his wife. The magic cardboard was the birthday gift he bought for his son Cam, from a crazy old man's roadside stand, because it was all he could afford. Things go awry when the rich, sadistic goth kid in the neighborhood gets wind of it and steals the magic cardboard to unleash his own imagination on the world (which Mike dismisses as 'derivative or darkness for darkness' sake.' Like making a boxer is so original). At which points things go to hell.
Lots of dealing with what it means to be human, or a man, in among fighting giant cardboard hermit crabs with cardboard particle cannons. Mike being so locked up by what he sees as his inability to be a good father, that he struggles to really do anything. Plus, he feels like he's being unfaithful to his wife by being interested in the lady next door, who is clearly interested in him. It's easier to have fun making things out of magic cardboard with Cam, until that becomes its own problem. Then it's one more thing he tries to run from.
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