'The Larks'.
Jack Dunkley was a British cartoonist with the Daily Mirror, best-known as the artist of the long-running humor family comic 'The Larks' (1957-1985). For the same paper, he also drew the sports comic 'Sport Shorts' (1932-1952) and educational comic features about cooking ('Patsy', 1946-1951) and gardening ('Mr. Digwell', early 1950s–1992?).
Early life and career
Jack Dunkley was born in 1906 in Holloway, London as the son of a housekeeper. After leaving Sir Hugh Middleton Secondary School at age sixteen, he became a writer of subtitle cards for advertising films playing in theaters, produced at Wardour Street. In the evenings, he took classes at the Central School of Arts and Crafts. By 1930, he had quit his job, and two years later, he became a freelance cartoonist.
The Daily Mirror
In 1932, Dunkley joined the Daily Mirror, where for decades he remained a house cartoonist. For about thirty years, he made the regular sports comic 'Sport Shorts'. On 25 October 1951, during the general elections, he designed the paper's front page. The image depicted a hand holding a gun, with the subtitle: "Today YOUR finger is on the trigger." This cartoon became one of the paper's most iconic front pages. In addition to the Mirror, Dunkley was also an illustrator and caricaturist for The Daily Express, The Daily Sketch, The News Chronicle and The Radio Times.
'Patsy'.
Patsy
For the Daily Mirror, Dunkley also drew the educational comic strip 'Patsy' (1946-1951), written by Ambrose Heath. Launched on 1 October 1946, the stories revolve around the young couple Peter and Patsy. In each episode they receive cooking lessons from Patsy's mother or their neighbors, the elderly Mrs. Always and the younger Mrs. Featherstone. The recipes are typically explained step by step in do-it-yourself panels with speech balloons.
The cooking comic was made with a specific purpose. Due to the Second World War, many English girls had not received proper education, especially regarding cooking. 'Patsy' reached this demographic to help them catch up. Many recipes were also unusual to British readers, because the post-war economic boom saw an instream of numerous previously unavailable food products. Some were even considered quite exotic. Certain 'Patsy' episodes were also compiled in book format. The series ran until 1951.
Mr. Digwell
In the same fashion, Dunkley also drew a longtime comic strip about gardening for the Daily Mirror, called 'Mr. Digwell'. Initially created in 1946 by writer Ambrose Heath and the cartoonist Bernard Venables, Dunkley took over during the 1950s, working mostly with scriptwriter Ian Gammidge. Until the early 1990s, the feature provided gardening tips in comic format given by Mr. Digwell, a gardener with a large mustache. He often works together with his friends Jack, Lizzie, Mr. Newcome, Mr. Busyman and the newlyweds Jack and Pru. In 1977, a book compilation was published: 'Mr. Digwell's Everyday Gardening Book' (1977), which was re-edited into the magazine special 'Gardener's Mirror', issued by the paper in 1981.
In later years, the Daily Mirror has continued to run 'Mr. Digwell' in reprints. The name of the character is still used by the paper for botanic articles and podcasts. The gardener Paul Peacock has released the gardening book 'A Year In The Garden' (2012) under the Mr. Digwell banner.
'Mr. Digwell'.
The Larks
Between 1957 and 1985, Dunkley was additionally the artist for the Daily Mirror's gag-a-day family comic 'The Larks'. Starting on 5 August 1957, the readers of the Daily Mail were first introduced to supermarket employee Sam Lark and his blond wife Sal. In 1961, they received a son, Stevie, and later also a daughter, Susie. The family cat So-So expressed himself in thought balloons, set on rhyme.
Based on a radio comedy of the same name, the comic's initial episodes were written by radio scriptwriters Bill Kelly and Arthur Lay, followed by Robert St. John-Cooper (who was once a cartoonist himself and wrote stories for TV series). From 1962 on, Brian Cooke took over and changed the working class family into a middle class one. In the late 1970s, Ian Gammidge became the final scriptwriter. When newspaper tycoon Robert Maxwell bought the paper in July 1984, the new management wanted innovation. So 'The Larks' and Bill Tidy's equally long-running comic 'The Fosdyke Saga', were both terminated on 28 February 1985.
Remarkably enough, the characters in 'The Larks' also aged with the times, a rare occurrence in comics that can also be seen in Winsor McCay's 'The Story of Hungry Henrietta' (1905), Chic Jackson's 'Roger Bean' (1913-1934), Frank King's 'Gasoline Alley' (1918), Hal Foster's 'Prince Valiant' (1929) and Milton Caniff's 'Terry and the Pirates' (1934-1946). An alternative title to the series was 'Life With The Larks', which was also the name of a 1978 book compilation. 'The Larks' ran with equal success in French as 'Sam et Zette', and in Dutch as 'De Tintels'.
Death
Jack Dunkley passed away at Hendon, Middlesex, in March 1994, at age 87.
'The Larks' (13 October 1965).