DSF

I have a young, talented Cartoon/Animator who is trying to make a name for himself - I had an idea of dedicating a whole section to his work. He is doing these Amine's - Japanese Cartoon type things.

Obviously I want to protect his work, apart from only having low res images on my website - and having a watermark is there anything else I can do?

I want him to make his own cartoon characters, with sentiments for each occasion during the year.

Get him to join ACID, and register each of his designs with them
http://www.acid.uk.com/

You can always slice the images and export the html from photoshop or fireworks for your website. Alternatively use a flash slideshow or make one with the images embedded in a separate xml file.