Tony Husband, who has died aged 73, was the cartoonist behind one of Britain’s longest running comic strips, The Yobs, a new episode appearing every fortnight for 38 years since 1985, on the seemingly uninspiring subject of bovver boys with IQs as low as their brows. “I was beaten up by a bunch of skinheads,” Husband told the Observer in 2001, “so maybe this was my way of getting back at them.” He had submitted a cartoon to Private Eye of two skinheads spray-painting graffiti on a wall, one of them asking “How do you spell NF?”
The magazine’s editor Ian Hislop then suggested that they use “the yob figures that you do a lot” in a three-panel strip called The Yobs; later it appeared as Yobs, or sometimes Yobettes. It was named strip cartoon of the year in 1987 by the Cartoonists’ Club of Great Britain, who had already chosen Husband as best gag cartoonist in 1985 and 1986, and would reward him many more times.
Husband had previously been warned against sending cartoons to Private Eye, a friend telling him it was a closed shop for Oxbridge types. He sent in 10 cartoons anyway, but received a package back from them with no note; he did not bother to check how many cartoons were returned. “A week later a friend rang to congratulate me on having two cartoons in Private Eye. Puzzled, I dashed to Stockport to get a copy … and there they were.”
A former hippy, Husband was tall, slim and surprisingly deadpan for someone whose business was laughter. “I’ve actually got a very private sense of humour,” he once told the Manchester Evening News. “People’s blunders make me laugh. And I like daft things. And I suppose I do incline towards the sick side of life. I don’t take anything that seriously.” He made fun of everyday existence and its quirks, which led to him winning the Cartoon Art Trust’s Pont award in 2005, the citation reading: “Whether it is football hooligans on the rampage or a quiet sherry for four in the front lounge, Tony Husband’s cartoons sum up the British character of today.”
In later life Husband’s father, Ron, suffered from Alzheimer’s, his gradual loss of memory and move into a care home inspiring Husband to draw a few illustrations of an imagined conversation between the two. Stephen Fry tweeted the pages to his social media followers and a publisher mailed Husband asking if he could turn the pages into a book. Take Care, Son: The Story of My Dad and His Dementia was published in 2014 and Husband became an active campaigner for dementia. He tackled other challenging subjects in From a Dark Place (2016), about his son Paul’s heroin addiction, and in his illustrations for Libby Moore’s After… The Impact of Child Abuse (2019).
The eldest son of Ron, a managing executive of Great Universal Stores, and Vera (nee Fletcher), Tony was born in Blackpool, Lancashire, but raised in the countryside, in the village of Gee Cross near Hyde, Greater Manchester. He attended the local Holy Trinity primary school and discovered a talent for art at Greenfield Street secondary school in Hyde. His father enjoyed drawing cartoons and painting watercolours, and Tony began cartooning at the age of 16, at first copying his father’s work but also influenced by his reading of Punch and Private Eye and cartoonists such as Mike Williams. He developed a free, uninhibited style of drawing that allowed him to sketch upwards of 60 cartoons a week.
He joined a Manchester advertising agency as an office junior, and it was in the in-house magazine of one of their clients, Burlington World, that he had his first cartoons published in 1968. He continued to draw cartoons at night while working as a window dresser for Burton’s menswear shops and then as a designer for a Manchester jeweller, contributing to local underground papers – Grass Eye and Mole Express – before selling two cartoons to Weekend and the Daily Mirror in one week in 1971; he went on to draw for national daily newspapers, weekly magazines and glossy monthlies.
He took voluntary redundancy from the jeweller’s in 1984 and became a full-time cartoonist, later that year publishing his first book, Use Your Head, which imagined macabre uses for a severed head – as a door stop, a child’s potty, a Christmas tree decoration, and other grisly suggestions. He was named joke cartoonist of the year for the first time that year.
Over a drink in a Manchester pub, Husband, a fellow cartoonist, Patrick Gallagher, and a writer, Mark Rodgers, dreamed up Oink!, an irreverent, alternative children’s comic. They approached IPC, the country’s biggest comics publisher, who agreed to publish it from April 1986, alongside long-running and unchanging Buster and Whizzer & Chips, for which Husband wrote occasional scripts. Edited by Uncle Pigg, the paper was filled with pig-puns and gags about smells that won over the 10- to 13-year-old audience, selling 155,000 copies fortnightly by its fifth issue before falling back to 90,000. Husband’s character, Horace “Ugly Face” Watkins, was a star from the beginning and Paul made guest appearances in photo stories.
It folded after four years, but out of the ashes came a TV series, Round the Bend! (1989-91), a blend of cartoons, live action and puppets starring Doc Croc and his staff of rats who run a variety show from their sewer. The show was nominated for an award by the Royal Television Society.
The trio of Husband, Gallagher and Rodgers were brought in by the BBC to launch Hangar 17, described as the first “the-weekend-starts-here” Friday night show for kids since Crackerjack. The wacky variety show’s mix of music and comedy ran for three seasons (1992-94). Husband also wrote an episode for the Chuckle Brothers’ comedy series ChuckleVision (1994).
He wrote and illustrated dozens of books and designed costumes, scenery and slides for Save the Human, a children’s show that was staged at the Manchester Opera House in 1990. The show, about animals taking over the world after mankind has made a mess of it, was co-written with David Wood. Husband also toured with the Yorkshire poet Ian McMillan, performing A Cartoon History of Here, a mix of readings and improvised poetry, which the artist illustrated on a flipchart, or on acetate where venues had projectors.
Ever busy, he contributed strips and cartoons to publications including the Oldie, the Times, the Spectator, Golf International, the Nursing Standard and Practical Caravan. He illustrated greetings cards, was cartoonist in residence at the Lowry Centre in Manchester, official cartoonist for the Groucho Club in London, and drummer for the Idler magazine’s ukulele band.
Husband lived in Hyde, not far from where he grew up, and enjoyed walking in the countryside, dreaming up jokes. He was on his way to a Private Eye leaving party in London, on a Thames barge , when he suffered a heart attack on Westminster Bridge. After his father’s death, Paul posted online the last cartoon Husband drew: on the train to London, thinking that he would be late, he sent a picture of himself waving goodbye to a boat departing from Westminster Pier.
His wife, Carole (nee Garner), whom he married in 1976, acted as his book-keeper and personal assistant. She and Paul survive him as do his brothers, James, Keith and Ronald.
• Tony (William Anthony) Husband, cartoonist and author, born 28 August 1950; died 18 October 2023
