About John
John was born on 21st August 1934 in Glastonbury police station, where his father was a PC, and later moved to Pensford when his father was promoted to sergeant during WWII.
Around 1949, he spent a term at Yeovil Art School. Following his National Service in the Army in Germany (c1952–1954), where he drew maps and geographical designs, he began a career in design, with a particular focus on typography.
For many years he worked in the display departments of companies such as C&V Clark (shoes) and May & Baker (pharmaceuticals).
He was the first regular strip cartoonist in The Sunday Times, and the strips were later syndicated worldwide.
He married Margaret Talbot in 1956 and their daughter, Joanna, was born the following year.
John, Margaret and Joanna
While living in Bermuda, from 1964 to 1967, John produced alphabet designs and logos for the Island Press and Creative Signs. He also drew weekly editorial/political cartoons for the Bermuda Sun. Later, John and his family moved to the Greek island of Hydra.
'He’s remembered in Bermuda for his drawings of people who looked like their dogs at a dog show, and he’s remembered in Greece for his drawings of Greek Orthodox priests with their tall hats and umbrellas,' wrote The Register and Tribune Syndicate.
After returning to Britain, John and his family moved to Wiltshire where John became part of Lord Weymouth's team of artists at Longleat House, painting many of the Kama Sutra murals there.
At the same time, he also worked as a freelance cartoonist. He was best known for his internationally syndicated comic strip Perkins, which was completely wordless and featured a bald, mustachioed character. Originally titled Cicero, it debuted in The Sunday Times on 14 April 1968, marking the paper’s first regular syndicated comic strip.
Perkins later appeared in the Daily Express and the Hampstead & Highgate Express, before global distribution (excluding the Far East) was taken over by The Register & Tribune Syndicate in the United States.
Perkins 'simply brings fun and laughs to the comic page ... which is just what that page is for,' said Denny Allen, the syndicate’s managing editor. 'This is something which is not imitative of another comic strip. It’s fresh, creative and offers a brand of humor to readers which they deserve. And, best of all, it was not conjured up to capitalize on some particular fad or mood. It is just one man’s attempt to provoke laughter by clever drawings.'
Four collections of Perkins cartoons were published in book form. Other syndicated works included MicroMouse, Rumpuss, Depussy, and Figures of Speech (which ran from 1980 to 1992).
John also had cartoons published in She Magazine, The Daily Mirror, Punch, Dandy, Woman’s Realm, Radio Times, The Sunday Times and The Daily Express, among others.
John was extraordinarily prolific, working 12-plus hours every day of the week at a small, antique mahogany table in his living room.
He kept meticulous page-a-day diaries, in which he wrote about his daily life. The pages were filled with illustrations, drawn in biro.
John left behind the original artwork of around 4,500 Perkins strips, plus a variety of other cartoon characters, not to mention paintings and drawings from his years in Bermuda, Greece and Wiltshire; and then from his final 27 years, living in Pilton in Somerset.
He died in 1998 in Bath, aged 63.
