Henry Matthew Talintyre (1893–1962) was a British

comic strip A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st ...

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, th ...

, best known for drawing the elephant character Uncle Oojah for Flo Lancaster's comic series that later became ''The Wonderful Adventures of Jerry, Don and Snooker''.

Biography

Talintyre was born in Gateshead, Durham in 1893. He served in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, then moved to

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

in the 1920s. He later drew nursery comics for

DC Thomson DC Thomson is a media company based in Dundee, Scotland. Founded by David Couper Thomson in 1905, it is best known for publishing ''The Dundee Courier'', ''The Evening Telegraph'' and ''The Sunday Post'' newspapers, and the comics ''Oor Wull ...

and lived in

Dundee Dundee (; sco, Dundee; gd, Dùn Dè or ) is Scotland's fourth-largest city and the 51st-most-populous built-up area in the United Kingdom. The mid-year population estimate for 2016 was , giving Dundee a population density of 2,478/km2 or ...

, where he lodged in a boarding house with the father of cartoonist

Dave Gibbons David Chester Gibbons (born 14 April 1949) is an English comics artist, writer and sometimes letterer. He is best known for his collaborations with writer Alan Moore, which include the miniseries ''Watchmen'' and the Superman story "For the Man ...

. Gibbons would later describe him as "something of a bohemian type... very unlike a customs officer." His son, Douglas, recalled that Talintyre and his fellow artists were frustrated by DC Thompson's management style, even smashing a clocking-in machine the company introduced. Talintyre took over the Oojah comic series after the death of its previous illustrator, Thomas Maybank. The strip ran in ''Playhour'', ''Pictures'' and ''

Jack and Jill "Jack and Jill" (sometimes "Jack and Gill", particularly in earlier versions) is a traditional English nursery rhyme. The Roud Folk Song Index classifies the commonest tune and its variations as number 10266, although it has been set to severa ...

''. This version of the comic renamed ''The Wonderful Adventures of Jerry, Don and Snooker'', which ran in ''Jack and Jill'' between 1954 and 1958. Talintyre also contributed to the early issues of ''

TV Comic ''TV Comic'' was a British comic book magazine published weekly from 9 November 1951 until 29 June 1984. Featuring stories based on television series running at the time of publication, it was the first British comic to be based around TV pro ...

'', where he drew characters named "Jack and Jill" (unrelated to the characters in the comic of that name). Talintyre married Gladys Gould, whom he met while living in London. He was involved in several music hall shows. He died in the Chichester area of Britain in 1962, aged 69.

References

British comics artists 1893 births 1962 deaths {{UK-comics-creator-stub