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Flook Online

We have catalogued 384 pieces of artwork for the Flook strip cartoon drawn by Trog [Wally Fawkes] a small proportion of the entire collection, but it's a start. For those of you who have never heard of Flook here is a piece from our online biography of Wally Fawkes which explains the origins of the strip.

Please feel free to leave your comments about the cartoons on the website.

The Daily Mail's owner, Lord Rothermere, had been impressed by "Barnaby", a syndicated American strip by David Johnson Leisk, launched in 1942 and featuring a boy called Barnaby with a disruptive fairy godfather called Mr O'Malley. He wanted a similar children's strip cartoon for the Daily Mail, and Douglas Mount showed him some sample scripts he had already produced for a series provisionally called "Rusty and The Goop." Fawkes was asked to illustrate it, and "Rufus" - named after the red-headed boy who featured in it - was launched on 25 April 1949. After Rufus discovered Flook - a magical creature that at first could only make that sound - the strip became "Rufus and Flook," and finally "Flook." Initially aimed at children, the Daily Mail even marketed a rubber Flook with a whistle in its nose.

Fawkes drew "Flook" for thirty-five years, with various authors including Compton Mackenzie in 1953, Humphrey Lyttleton from 1953 to 1956, and George Melly from 1956 to 1971. Under Melly the strip moved even further away from its origins, to become a gently satirical adult fantasy, although Fawkes was careful to maintain the air of innocence. As he once told Melly, "Don't get too socially conscious, don't get too deliberately satirical George; the best way of jumping on a target is to appear to be walking past it." In 1979 Margaret Thatcher called the strip "quite the best commentary on the politics of the day." Later writers included Barry Norman, Barry Took, and, from 1980, Fawkes himself.