Read Andy Capp long-running syndicated comic strip

comic strip

This British-born comic strip Andy Capp, set in Hartlepool, created by Reg Smythe (1917–1998) in 1957, chronicles the misadventures of a blue-collar laborer type that hardly ever labors and instead settles into the lifestyle of a British Northerner pub crawler. Andy and his hard-working wife Flo bicker their way through life in a way that ranges from hostile to caring.

Andy Capp ran in the London Daily Mirror but was also syndicated in the United States by Creators Syndicate, starting in 1963. The comic is syndicated internationally by Creators Syndicate, is printed in over 1,500 newspapers in America and around the world, from Russia to Japan, Norway to Sri Lanka, and translated into 13 different languages. Andy Capp was also adopted to the small screen as a minor TV series, spawning a shortened run of six episodes with James Bolam in the title role and Paula Tilbrook as Flo, aired by ITV in 1988.

Reg Smythe wrote and drew Andy Capp, both daily and Sunday, until his death in 1998. Since then, the strip has been continued by unnamed successors, though for years, Smythe's signature remained affixed to it. Smythe received the National Cartoonists Society’s Humor Comic Strip Award for the strip in 1974. Since November 2004, it's been signed by Roger Mahoney and Roger Kettle.

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