Flook (comic strip)

Flook was a British comic strip which ran from 1949 to 1984 in the Daily Mail newspaper. It was drawn by Wally Fawkes (of the jazz group Wally Fawkes and the Troglodytes), who signed the strips as "Trog".

It was the first newspaper comic strip to be published by the New Zealand newspaper Otago Daily Times, where it ran from 1952 to 1979.

Characters and story

The central characters were a young boy called Rufus and his animal friend, Flook. They inhabited a satirical and socially-perceptive fantasy world populated by larger-than-life characters, mostly bearing a striking resemblance to leading politicians and celebrities. Many of their adventures starred gaolbird Bodger, his witch-like sister Lucretia (cf. Lucretia Borgia) and a mad retired colonel.

Scripts

Storylines were written by the singer and writer George Melly, the comedian Barry Took, the musician Humphrey Lyttelton and the film critic Barry Norman.

The ironic and bohemian ethos of the strip was curiously at variance with the stuffy conservatism of the Daily Mail. In fact, Flook ran for a while at the opposite end of the British press's political spectrum, since the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror (diametrically opposed to the Mail's right wing stance) also ran the strip on their cartoon pages for a few years.

Flook was also adopted as a mascot by 831 Squadron, Fleet Air Arm, and the character was painted on the squadron aircraft.

Books

• The Amazing Adventures of Rufus and Flook 1949
• Rufus and Flook v. Moses Maggot 1950
• Rufus and Flook at School 1951
• Flook 1958 (collection of three stories)
• Flook: Flook's Eye View of the Sixties, with an introduction by Laurie Lee, 1970 (collection of four stories)
• Flook and the Peasants' Revolt 1975
• Trog: Forty Graphic Years 1987 (features one complete “Flook” story)
• I, Flook: An Autobiography by George Melly, 1962 (not a strip collection)
• Trog at 30: A Celebration, Centre for the Study of Cartoons and Caricature, University of Kent at Canterbury, 1979 (catalogue accompanying an exhibit, with essays by most of the writers of “Flook” up to date)
• The Pataphysical Flook 2007 (an essay about Melly’s references to the works of Alfred Jarry in Flook)