Veteran Sunday Telegraph cartoonist Trogg (aka Wally Fawkes) has retired at the age 82 due to failing eyesight.
Fawkes
began his career on the Daily Mail in 1945, and in 1949 started the
six-day-a-week comic strip Flook, which ran until the mid-Eighties.
He
once had to make the decision between his career as clarinet player in
Humphrey Littleton’s jazz band and drawing the comic strip. He said: “I
decided to keep the music for fun and the cartooning for money – that
proved to be very sensible. Unless you’re a band leader you don’t make
a lot of money.”
Fawkes has also drawn for The Spectator, New
Statesman and Punch and last year was named British Press Awards
cartoonist of the year. He was The Observer’s main cartoonist from 1965
to 1995, when he moved to The Sunday Telegraph.
Editor Dominic
Lawson said: “He’s one of the most brilliant draftsmen on the street.
We’ve been unbelievably lucky to have had him since I became editor in
1995.”
Fawkes continues to play with his band on Tuesday evenings at the White Hart in Drury Lane.
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