Reg Smythe

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Reginald "Reg" Smythe (July 10, 1917 – June 13, 1998) was a British cartoonist who created the Andy Capp comic strip.

Born Reginald Smyth (without the "e"), he developed a talent for cartoon drawing while serving in the British Army during the Second World War. After being released from active duty, he returned to the North East of England and worked several odd jobs before landing a position as a cartoonist at the national newspaper The Mirror in 1954. Smythe's parents, Andy and Florrie, were immortalised as Andy and Flo in the strip, which debuted three years later and made its way to the United States in 1963. He received the National Cartoonist Society Award for Humor Comic Strip for 1974 for Andy Capp.to this day he has published over 100 books.

In the mid-1970s, Smythe returned to Hartlepool, where he died of lung cancer in 1998, aged 80.