Reg Smythe

REG SMYTHE d1998. British cartoonist famous for creating the popular long running Andy Capp comic strip. In 1954 the Daily Mirror's art editor Philip Zec gave him a regular daily cartoon, "Laughter at Work". Then in 1957, he was asked by Mirror Editor Hugh Cudlipp to create a cartoon character for the paper's Manchester edition. He thought up Andy Capp, a stereotypically lazy, selfish working-class northerner in a flat cap and his long-suffering wife Flo, during the seven-hour drive from his mother's house in Hartlepool to London. He died in Durham aged 80 on June 13th 1998