Flook

The unlikely and satirical adventures of this small and furry creature with the short trunk first appeared in the Daily Mail in 1949.

Created and drawn by Canadian artist and jazz musician Wally Fawkes, Flook ran for 35 years before its sudden cancellation in 1984 (reportedly because the editor, David English, objected to its repeated jabs at Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher).

The comic strip briefly moved to the Sunday Mirror before disappearing completely.

In North America, the strip was syndicated via the General Features Corporation to newspapers between September 1951 and October 1954.

The central characters in the comic strips were a young boy called Rufus – not remarkably bright but sympathetic – and his tubby little magical animal friend, Flook (who vaguely resembled a furry pig walking on his hind legs).

Flook could speak seven languages, knew pretty much everything, and had a fine sense of irony with which to temper Rufus’ innocence and enthusiasm.

He could also change shape into all manner of objects – mostly at will but sometimes involuntarily.

Flook and Rufus inhabited a satirical and socially perceptive fantasy world not unrelated to contemporary Great Britain, populated by larger-than-life characters, mostly bearing a striking resemblance to leading politicians and celebrities.

Many of their adventures starred their principal adversaries, the villainous Moses Maggot (renamed Mossy Mildew for North American syndication) and his sidekick, the gaolbird Douglas Bodger, whose sister – the overweight teenage witch Lucretia Bodger – also appeared quite frequently (with her cat, Gobstopper), as did the mad retired Colonel ‘Buffy’ Cordite-Smith.

Other characters included Inspector ‘Red’ Herring, Sir Montague Ffolly (Preservative Prime Minister), Mr Muckybrass (leader of the Leftover Party) and the journalist Scoop.

Fawkes collaborated with several scriptwriters over the years, including Douglas Mount, Robert Raymond, Compton Mackenzie, George Melly, Barry Norman, Humphrey Lyttelton, and Barry Took.

Several book-length compilations were published, and the Daily Mail also marketed a Flook toy.

Walter Ernest Fawkes was born in 1924 in Vancouver, Canada. When his mother, Mabel, left her husband for British printer Charles Fawkes, she took her children to Britain with Charles in 1931.

Enthused by comic books from a young age, Fawkes left school at 14 with a scholarship to study at Sidcup Art School. During World War II, he painted camouflage on factory roofs to hide them from enemy bombing until a bout of pleurisy made him unfit for service; he was then employed by the Coal Commission to work on maps of coal seams.

In 1942, he entered an art competition judged by the Daily Mail‘s chief cartoonist, Leslie Illingworth, who found Fawkes’ work at the Daily Mail drawing decorative illustrations. He signed the drawings as ‘Trog’, which became his pen name.

Fawkes died in London on 1 March 2023, aged 98, following a short illness.