The National Cartoonists Society named Tiger the best humor strip in 1970, 1978 and 2000, with an additional nomination in 1998. Blake drew the strip until he was 85, two years before his death on December 26, 2005. Asked if he could continue to produce the strip, Blake told an interviewer, "Sure, I could keep doing it. But I can’t. I’ve had enough." After Blake retired, the strip continued to appear as reprints, and as of December 2005, according to the syndicate, Tiger was running in more than 100 newspapers in 11 countries.