Carl Giles

Ronald "Carl" Giles OBE (29 September 1916 – 27 August 1995), often referred to simply as Giles, was a cartoonist who worked for the British newspaper the Daily Express.

His cartoon style was a single topical highly detailed panel, usually with a great deal more going on than the single joke.

After leaving school at the age of 14 he worked as an office boy for Superads, an advertising agency that commissioned animated films from cartoonists like Brian White and Sid Griffiths' animation company also based in Charing Cross Road, London from 1929.

When Superads closed in 1931, he gained experience in other small film companies in the area before being promoted to an animator in 1935, beginning to work for producer Alexander Korda on a colour cartoon film, The Fox Hunt.

Giles then went to Ipswich to join Roland Davies, who was setting up a studio to produce animated versions of his popular newspaper strip "Come On Steve".

Six ten-minute films were produced, beginning with Steve Steps Out (1936), but even though Giles was the head animator, he received no screen credit.

In 1937, Giles started work as a cartoonist for the left-wing Sunday newspaper Reynolds News, for which he drew a weekly topical cartoon and a comic strip, "Young Ernie".

Giles married Sylvia 'Joan' Clarke, his first cousin, on 14 March 1942 in East Finchley.

The couple never had children but were married for over 50 years and shortly after their marriage the couple moved to Witnesham, near Ipswich, Suffolk, where they spent the rest of their lives together.

His strip came to the attention of the editor of the Sunday Express and in 1943 he was interviewed for a job on the Evening Standard, but was eventually offered a job on the Daily Express and Sunday Express instead, at a higher salary of 20 guineas per week, and he quit Reynolds News.

His first cartoon for his new employers appeared in the 3 October 1943 edition of the Sunday Express.

Certain recurring characters achieved a great deal of popularity, particularly the extended Giles family, which first appeared in a published cartoon on 5 August 1945 and featured prominently in the strip.

Giles was born in Islington, London, the son of a tobacconist and a farmer's daughter.

He was nicknamed "Karlo", later shortened to "Carl", by friends who decided he looked like Boris Karloff, a lifelong nickname.

In 1945 he became the Daily Express's "War Correspondent Cartoonist" with the 2nd Army.

At one point during World War II he was assigned as War Correspondent to the Coldstream Guards unit which liberated the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

Giles interviewed the camp commandant, Josef Kramer, who turned out to be aware of and an admirer of Giles's work.

Kramer gave Giles his Walther P38 pistol and holster, a ceremonial dagger, and his swastika armband, in return asking for a signed original of Giles's work.

Giles said:

The pistol and armband as well as the whip carried by Irma Grese were later given by Giles to a private collector in Suffolk.

Collections of Giles's cartoons have been produced annually since 1946.

Giles later said that he never agreed with the Daily Express's politics, and felt guilt for abandoning the more left-wing Reynolds News for it, but it made him wealthy: by 1955 he was being paid £8,060 per annum (equivalent to about £200,000 at 2018 prices) for producing three cartoons a week.

Giles was rejected for war service for being blind in one eye and deaf in one ear following a motorcycle accident, but made animated shorts for the Ministry of Information, while some of his cartoons were reprinted in poster form for the Railway Executive Committee and others.

In 1959 he was awarded an OBE.

Among his fans were the British royal family, who often requested the originals of his work.

Giles's cartoons feature many references to news items, some even quoting a news headline.

The topics were typically British and made references to common British goods or attitudes.

For example, a cartoon published in 1985 involves a cleaner who has "left her box of Persil just behind the throne" and knocks to be let back in to get it, upon which she is mistaken for Black Rod.

Up until 1991, when Giles stopped producing new cartoons, the annual consisted of cartoons from the preceding year — for example, in the 42nd series (published in autumn 1989), the cartoons used were originally published in the Daily Express and Sunday Express between 30 June 1987 and 12 June 1988.

Giles finally quit working for The Daily Express in 1989; his cartoons had been allocated less and less space in the newspaper, and he said that the last straw was being stood up following a trip to London to lunch with the editor.

The last decade of Giles's life was plagued with failing health, including sight loss and encroaching deafness, and in 1990 he suffered the amputation of both legs due to poor circulation issues.

He continued working for the Sunday Express until 1991.

He never actually sold any of his creations, preferring to donate them to friends and to charitable organisations, like the RNLI, of which he was Life President and which continues to issue charity Christmas cards each year bearing his work.

He also contributed cartoons to Men Only and other publications, drew advertising cartoons for Guinness, Fisons and other companies, and designed Christmas cards for the Royal National Institute for the Deaf and Game Conservancy Research Fund.

From 1991, the annuals consisted of cartoons previously published in collections, although some previously unpublished in annuals were included.

He was actually registered with that name when he died in 1995.

He was reported to have never got over the death of his wife, on Christmas Day 1994, and died himself just over eight months later at Ipswich Hospital on 27 August 1995 aged 78.

The graves of Giles and his wife are located in the churchyard of St Martin's church in Tuddenham St Martin, Suffolk.

Until his death in 1995, Giles selected which cartoons would be in the annual.

Up until the 50th collection (published in 1996), they were given the title "1st Series", "2nd Series", up to "60th Series" (2007), although since the 1997-published collection, they have been called "The 1998 collection", "The 1999 collection", etc. For reasons unknown the 2005 Collection was subtitled as Fifty-Sixth series, despite the 2003 edition being (correctly) titled as such and the 2005 release actually being the Fifty-Eighth book.