Harry Hanan

Harry Hanan (14 December 1916 - 19 January 1982) was a British cartoonist, best known as the creator of the pantomime comic strip Louie which he began in 1947. Louie was a small chap, a loser who was constantly annoyed by life's little vicissitudes and minor moments. Hanan described his mild-mannered character as "the anti-Superman".

Biography Born in Liverpool, Lancashire, England, Harry Hanan went to the Liverpool School of Art and found employment doing layouts and illustrating articles for the Liverpool Evening Express, plus an occasional bonus for drawing a daily cartoon, eventually writing film reviews and serving as the newspaper's features editor. He also designed posters and stage sets in Liverpool.

An infantry commander during the Second World War, Hanan experienced six years of military service. In post-Second World War London, he became an editorial cartoonist with The People, London's weekly tabloid with a circulation of four million. Meeting his weekly deadline in short order, Hanan created Louie in his spare time, and it was first published in The People in March 1947. When H. R. Wishengrad, head of Press Features, saw Hanan's strip, he decided to syndicate it in the United States. With Hanan drawing both the daily and the Sunday strips, Louie found a large readership in more than 100 American newspapers, initially distributed by the Hall Syndicate and later by the Chicago Tribune Syndicate. Because Louie had visual gags with no words to translate, it also appeared in more than 100 publications in 23 countries, including Turkey and Japan. Some newspapers ran it on their editorial pages.

One comics historian noted that Louie bore a striking resemblance to Hanan, who retired in 1976 and died six years later.