'Picknick'.
Ronald "Carl" Giles was a famous British newspaper cartoonist for the Daily Express. Born in 1916 in Islington, London, he began his career as a tea-boy in an animation studio. He worked his way up and became a principal animator by 1936 on Alexander Korda's cartoon film 'The Fox Hunt'. He subsequently worked with Roland Davies on the production of a series of films based on Davies' newspaper strip 'Come One Steve'.
'Young Ernie'.
In 1937, Giles became a cartoonist with the Sunday paper Reynolds News. He made a weekly topical cartoon and the comic strip 'Young Ernie' for this left wing paper until in 1943 he received a spot in the Sunday Express. Giles was rejected for war service, but he did become the Daily Express's "War Correspondent Cartoonist" with the 2nd Army in 1945.
In 1966, Giles was co-founder of the British Cartoonists' Association. When John Lennon and Yoko Ono held their famous 'Bed-In' in Amsterdam (1969), they added cut-outs from newspapers about their Bed-In in the sleeve of their 'Wedding Album'. Apart from articles, they also included editorial cartoons, one of them by Giles.
Giles continued to work for the Daily Express until 1989, and for the Sunday Express until 1991. Out of disagreement with these paper's conservative ideology, Giles started hiding images of their best-known comic strip hero, Mary Tourtel's Rupert Bear being tortured or killed in his cartoons. Giles panels were already very detailed, starring characters generally referred to as the "Giles family". He also cartooned for magazines like Men Only, and for Guinness and Fisons advertisements. Giles died at the age of 78 on August 27, 1995.
In the United Kingdom, Carl Giles was an influence on Leo Baxendale, Clive Collins, Harry Harrison and Leslie Illingworth. He also inspired artists in Australia (Murray Ball, Pat Oliphant), The Netherlands (Jan Sanders, Ruud Straatman) and South Africa (Zapiro). When John Lennon and Yoko Ono released their 'Wedding Album' in 1969, the record contained various cut-out newspaper articles about their wedding, honeymoon, bag-in and bed-in peace activism, including cut-out editorial cartoons drawn by various British and Dutch comic artists, one of them was Carl Giles.
Comic strip by Carl Giles.