Reg Smythe Signed Photograph Original Sketch of "Andy"

Reg Smythe
Signed Photograph with Original Sketch of "Andy"

Nice 6x8" signed photo with great sketch of "Andy".

Reg Smythe was born in Hartlepool in 1917, the son of a boat-builder. He left school at fourteen, worked as a butcher's delivery boy, joined the Northumberland Fusiliers in 1936, and submitted cartoons to Cairo magazines during the war. After a spell as a post-office telephone clerk, he started freelancing as a cartoonist, joining the Daily Mirror in 1954.

Influenced by his cartoonist mentor Leslie Harding ('Styx') he produced the regular feature 'Laughter at Work' before creating 'Andy Capp' in 1957. Syndicated to 1400 newspapers in 31 countries, read by 175 million people and translated into 13 languages, the strip - based on the flat-capped Northerner and the pun 'handicap' - became a national institution.

Reg Smythe died in Hartlepool in 1998, leaving enough completed 'Andy Capp' strips for a further eighteen months of publication.