Winchester-based Worthy Down Books is currently offering a number of original artworks for sale by auction on Catawiki, including some beautiful “Douglas the Dachshund” original art by illustrator, comic artist and political cartoonist Peter Woolcock, commissioned for Jack & Jill magazine, sometime in the 1970s.
Born in 1926 and raised in Argentina, Peter Woolcock learnt his craft by sketching farm animals during lonely school holidays.
He spent his early life dreaming of becoming a cartoonist: his first cartoon was published at age nine! However, despite his desire to become a cartoonist, Woolcock first held a marketing job at the advertising department of Lever Brothers in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1942, a job he “hated with a purple passion”.
In 1944, aged eighteen, he joined the British army’s Royal Tank Regiment, serving in Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany and Denmark, chronicling his experiences in his sketchbook. As far as we are aware, that work has never been published.
Although resuming work at Lever Brothers after the war, in 1947, in 1953, he worked his passage mucking out horses on a cargo boat to England, where he then applied for a job with the Amalgamated Press.
He was hired by editor Leonard Matthews, who, Lambiek notes, mostly typecast him as an animal artist for the company’s nursery titles and children’s books.
A creative career swap proved a success, and he enjoyed an illustrious working life as a cartoonist and illustrator that spanned almost 60 years. Before becoming a political cartoonist in the 1980s in Bermuda, he was particularly noted for his illustrations and funny animal comics for various British nursery comic magazines.
He was the fifth and final artist to continue Julius Stafford Baker II’s series “Tiger Tim”, drawing that for eleven years. As for his own comic series, he mostly drew series about frogs and toads, including “The Funny Tales of Freddie Frog” (1954-1969, for Jack & Jill) and “Teddy Toad” (1956, for Playhour).
In 1955, he drew the hugely popular “The Wind in the Willows” for Playhour, which came to an end a year later. Woolcock revived the character of Mr. Toad in Harold Hare’s Own Paper in 1959, and continued to draw that character for Harold Hare and Playhour for 25 years.
“The Adventures of Mr. Toad”, also known as “Toad of Toad Hall”, based on Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows, was his personal favourite.
He also contributed other strips to Jack & Jill from the 1950s until the 1980s, and, later, Disneyland, drawing strips such as “The Jungle Book” and “101 Dalmatians” and other stories, although it wasn’t work he particularly enjoyed. Interviewed in 1993, he recalled being told, “‘We want you to do a Jungle Book’. It had already appeared in film but they wanted to do a book. So that was my job – to turn it into a story book. I had to redraw ten tons of model sheets. Anyway, they said they liked my animals, but the background… certain tree roots and stones were wrong. They were not Disney tree roots and stones. Can you imagine? But that’s the way it was. You must forget your style completely and draw Disney animals, Disney trees, Disney stones to a degree that I never thought existed.
“I didn’t really find it fulfilling drawing someone else’s characters.”
Political cartooning came relatively late in Woolcock’s career. It was something the cartoonist had always wanted to do, but he never had the time, nor perhaps the courage, while he was living in England.
But in 1983, two years after coming to Bermuda and about the same time as a general election, he found the urge irresistible. He began a second career as a political cartoonist, initially for the Bermuda Sun; followed by The Royal Gazette for more than two decades, poached from the Sun by then-editor David L White.
He created caricatures of countless politicians over the years, including former Bermuda Premiers Alex Scott and Sir John Swan.
Sadly, he died tragically in 2014, after being struck by a car while delivering his weekly cartoon to The Royal Gazette.
“It was my pleasure and privilege to know and work with Peter Woolcock for almost 25 years,” said Tim Hodgson, consulting editor of The Royal Gazette, described his heartbreak over the loss of Mr Woolcock at the time. “He was something of a fixture in my life: a valued colleague, a close personal friend and a perennial source of advice, support and encouragement. And, of course, laughter.
“His collected political caricatures and wry single-panel commentaries on current affairs represent a priceless treasure trove of Bermuda’s modern history as reflected in the most good-humoured eye.
“Conscientious, indefatigable and possessed of a sterling character and work ethic, he was one of the most original talents I have ever encountered.”
“His weekly cartoons in the Gazette were as much a part of the political landscape as the politicians themselves,” noted Chris Gibbons, publisher of Breezeblog, in a tribute. “He poked fun at the pomposity and small-town absurdity of it all, not with the cruel barbs of a Gerald Scarfe or Ralph Steadman, but a gentle mocking humour and a knowing wink that more often than not even brought a smile to those being drawn, many of whom paid him for the originals. Woolcock himself admitted that he couldn’t do what political cartoonists did in the UK or the US. “They really are sometimes pretty vicious,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any room or need for that here.”
Sir John Swan, Bermuda’s longest-serving premier, was the subject of Mr Woolcock’s wit as a minister, as premier, and beyond his retirement from politics. In expressing his condolences to the artist’s family, Sir John said: “He asked me, if he did cartoons, did I think people would be offended by it? I said, ‘absolutely not, you must do them’.
“Peter’s cartoons every Friday were something everybody looked forward to. He has done so much for Bermuda.I hope Bermudians from all walks of life will stop in their private way and in a private moment to remember him.”
Peter’s cartoons were immortalised in 26 annual collections titled Peter Woolcock’s Woppened. He also illustrated Andrew Stevenson’s “Family Man” column, which began in 2001, initially for Bermuda’s Bottom Line magazine and later for RG Magazine, both sister titles to The Royal Gazette.
Peter also illustrated two books by Stevenson: The Turtle Who Followed the Balloon (2007) and Bermuda’s Toad With One Eye (2008).
• Douglas the Dachshund art for Jack & Jill by Peter Woolcock – Catawiki Auction
• Other artworks for sale by Worthy Down
Head downthetubes for…
• Lambiek Profile: Peter Woolcock
• The Royal Gazette: Island mourns Peter Woolcock | Article by Sarah Lagan, 5th December 2014
• Breezeblog: Peter Woolcock: an era drawn to a close
• Bermuda.com: A Tribute to Peter Woolcock (1926 – 2014) – notes on an exhibition of his art in 2016
• Peter Woolcock art on Book Palace
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John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
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