JAK drew for the Evening Standard from 1952 until his death in 1997. Although Tony Blair described him as one of Britain’s “finest political cartoonists” JAK often categorised himself as a social, rather than political cartoonist. His drawings are crammed full of detail and he tended to use generic figures, rather than identifiable individuals. JAK started out as a commercial artist and he proved very successful at marrying his business sense to his cartooning. Many of his cartoons featured commercial names and logos. He was a master of product placement and arranged business deals with various companies. JAK had trenchant right-wing views but over the course of his career he managed to annoy people across the political spectrum. A spoof film poster he drew in 1982 advertising ‘The Ultimate in Psychopathic Horror – The Irish’ brought accusations of racism from the Greater London Council. Two years later the Conservative party protested when JAK portrayed Norman Tebbit as a bandage-wrapped mummy after the bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton.
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