Russell Taylor (cartoonist)

Last updated

Russell Philip Taylor
Born (1960-07-08) 8 July 1960 (age 63)

Russell Philip Taylor MBE (born 8 July 1960) is a British writer, journalist and composer. He is best known as half of the team (with Charles Peattie) that created the comic strip Alex. [1]

Contents

Education

Taylor studied at Abingdon School from 1973–1978. During his time at the school he was on the editorial board of The Abingdonian. [2] He then read Russian and Philosophy at St Anne's College, Oxford. [3]

Alex

Alex was created by Taylor and Charles Peattie and it first appeared in the London Daily News which ran from 24 February to 23 July 1987. [4] The cartoon then appeared in The Independent during 1987 before moving to The Daily Telegraph in 1992. [5]

The cartoon strip was so popular that it was subject to a nationwide billboard campaign before it switched to The Daily Telegraph. [5] Taylor is a supporter of Tottenham Hotspur football club, and as a private joke (and to avoid libel accusations) always names characters who are fired in the Alex strip after Tottenham footballers. [6] [7]

Alex was turned into a stage play by Peattie and Taylor and was performed at the Arts Theatre, London in October, 2007. Robert Bathurst portrayed the titular character. [8]

Other works

He also writes TV and film music with Steve Cooke. Among others, they composed the music for the documentaries The Dying Rooms in 1995 and Saving Africa's Witch Children – both of which won BAFTAs in 1996 and 2009 respectively. [9] [10]

He has also written books on Russia and marathon running and was appointed Member of the British Empire in the 2002 New Year Honours. [11]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cartoon</span> Type of two-dimensional visual art

A cartoon is a type of visual art that is typically drawn, frequently animated, in an unrealistic or semi-realistic style. The specific meaning has evolved, but the modern usage usually refers to either: an image or series of images intended for satire, caricature, or humor; or a motion picture that relies on a sequence of illustrations for its animation. Someone who creates cartoons in the first sense is called a cartoonist, and in the second sense they are usually called an animator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Cartoonists Society</span> Professional organization

The National Cartoonists Society (NCS) is an organization of professional cartoonists in the United States. It presents the National Cartoonists Society Awards. The Society was born in 1946 when groups of cartoonists got together to entertain the troops. They enjoyed each other's company and decided to meet on a regular basis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Low (cartoonist)</span> New Zealand born cartoonist 1891–1963) worked in NZ, Australia & Britain

Sir David Alexander Cecil Low was a New Zealand political cartoonist and caricaturist who lived and worked in the United Kingdom for many years. Low was a self-taught cartoonist. Born in New Zealand, he worked in his native country before migrating to Sydney in 1911, and ultimately to London (1919), where he made his career and earned fame for his Colonel Blimp depictions and his satirising of the personalities and policies of German dictator Adolf Hitler, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, and other leaders of his times.

<i>Daily Mirror</i> British daily tabloid newspaper

The Daily Mirror is a British national daily tabloid newspaper. Founded in 1903, it is owned by parent company Reach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was simply The Mirror. It had an average daily print circulation of 716,923 in December 2016, dropping to 587,803 the following year. Its Sunday sister paper is the Sunday Mirror. Unlike other major British tabloids such as The Sun and the Daily Mail, the Mirror has no separate Scottish edition; this function is performed by the Daily Record and the Sunday Mail, which incorporate certain stories from the Mirror that are of Scottish significance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Print syndication</span> Sale of news items to other news outlets

Print syndication distributes news articles, columns, political cartoons, comic strips and other features to newspapers, magazines and websites. The syndicates offer reprint rights and grant permissions to other parties for republishing content of which they own and/or represent copyrights. Other terms for the service include a newspaper syndicate, a press syndicate, and a feature syndicate.

William Edward Tidy, MBE was a British cartoonist, writer and television personality, known chiefly for his comic strips. He was noted for his charitable work, particularly for the Lord's Taverners, which he supported for over 30 years. Deeply proud of his working-class roots in Northern England, his most abiding cartoon strips, such as The Cloggies and The Fosdyke Saga, were set in an exaggerated version of that environment.

Adrian Raeside is an author, comic strip creator and founder of an animation company.

Alex is a British cartoon strip by Charles Peattie and Russell Taylor. It first appeared in the short-lived London Daily News in 1987. It moved to The Independent later that year and then to The Daily Telegraph in 1992. A translated version was published in the German newspaper Financial Times Deutschland. It was also published translated into Dutch for some years in the main financial newspaper of the Netherlands, Het Financieele Dagblad(FD), around the turn of the century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Peattie</span> British cartoonist (born 1958)

Charles Peattie is a British cartoonist, best known as half of the team that creates the comic strip Alex. He has two daughters and two sons, and lives in London. He was appointed MBE in the 2002 Honours List.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniel Levy (businessman)</span> English businessman

Daniel Philip Levy is an English businessman and the current chairman of Premier League football club Tottenham Hotspur. He has held this post since 2001, making him the longest-serving chairman in the Premier League.

Fred Basset is a comic strip about a male basset hound. The cartoon was created by Scottish cartoonist Alex Graham and published first in the Daily Mail on 8 July 1963.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Simon Russell Beale</span> British actor (born 1961)

Sir Simon Russell Beale is an English actor. He has been described by The Independent as "the greatest stage actor of his generation". He has received two BAFTA Awards, three Olivier Awards, and a Tony Award. For his services to drama, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2019.

George Pitcher is a British journalist, author and an Anglican priest. He is a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics, specialising in the future of journalism. He was most recently Editor-in-Chief of International Business Times UK, Associate Editor at Newsweek Europe and head of its editorial panel, positions he quit after his 60th birthday in 2015. He co-founded Jericho Chambers, a radical development of communications consultancy modelled on a set of legal chambers, with Robert Phillips, a former CEO at Edelman, in June 2013. Previously, he was appointed Secretary for Public Affairs to the Archbishop of Canterbury in October 2010 and left the post a year later. He was Religion Editor of Telegraph Media from May 2008 and wrote a regular column and occasional leaders for the Daily Telegraph and a contentious blog for telegraph.co.uk. He left the paper in June 2010, six weeks after editor-in-chief Will Lewis abruptly departed after a strategic disagreement. He serves on the Advisory Board of communications consultancy Cast From Clay

Frank William Huline-Dickens was a British cartoonist, best known for his strip Bristow, which ran for 51 years in the Evening Standard and was syndicated internationally. According to Guinness World Records, Bristow was the longest running daily cartoon strip by a single author. The character Bristow is even one year older than that, as he debuted in Dickens' older series Oddbod in The Sunday Times in 1960. Due to his popularity, he received his own spin-off series soon afterwards. Dickens broke the original record held by Marc Sleen, whose The Adventures of Nero was drawn for 45 years without any assistance. However, even Dickens' record has been broken in his turn by Jim Russell, whose series The Potts ran for 62 years. Dickens received eight awards for "Strip Cartoonist of the Year" from the Cartoonists' Club of Great Britain.

In a pre-recorded episode of The Russell Brand Show broadcast on BBC Radio 2 on 18 October 2008, comedian Russell Brand and presenter Jonathan Ross made prank calls to actor Andrew Sachs that courted controversy in the United Kingdom. Brand and Ross called Sachs to interview him on air; when he did not answer, they left lewd messages on his answering machine, including comments about Brand's relationship with Sachs' granddaughter Georgina Baillie.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum</span> Cartoon museum located on the Ohio State University campus

The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum is a research library of American cartoons and comic art affiliated with the Ohio State University library system in Columbus, Ohio. Formerly known as the Cartoon Research Library and the Cartoon Library & Museum, it holds the world's largest and most comprehensive academic research facility documenting and displaying original and printed comic strips, editorial cartoons, and cartoon art. The museum is named after the Ohio cartoonist Billy Ireland.

<i>The Daily Telegraph</i> British daily broadsheet newspaper

The Daily Telegraph, known online and elsewhere as The Telegraph, is a British daily conservative broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was founded by Arthur B. Sleigh in 1855 as The Daily Telegraph & Courier. The Telegraph is considered a newspaper of record. The paper's motto, "Was, is, and will be", was included in its emblem which was used for over a century starting in 1858.

Charles Pugsley Fincher is an American cartoonist and lawyer. His cartoons and comics focus on the law.

William St. John Glenn (1904–1974) was an Irish-British illustrator, painter and comics artist.

References

  1. "Friday, 19 October 2018". Alex cartoon.com.
  2. "Editorial Board" (PDF). The Abingdonian. June 1979. Retrieved 1 November 2022.
  3. "Russell Taylor Column" (PDF). St Annes.
  4. "Concise History of the British Newspaper in the Twentieth Century", British Library Help for Researchers
  5. 1 2 "ALEX (CHARLES PEATTIE AND RUSSELL TAYLOR)". Original political cartoon.com.
  6. " "The Spurs Show 2 April 2009 episode". Spurs.wippit.com. Retrieved 3 April 2009.[ permanent dead link ]
  7. "To the point funny: the men drawn to Alex". The Daily Telegraph. 24 February 2012.
  8. Shenton, Mark (30 August 2008). "Alex, Live Stage Version of Newspaper Cartoon, to Tour Prior to London Season". Playbill. Archived from the original on 30 August 2008. Retrieved 30 August 2008.
  9. "Television Craft in 1996". Bafta.
  10. "Television Current Affairs in 2009". Bafta.
  11. "New Year Honours". The Guardian . 31 December 2002. Retrieved 1 November 2022.