Andy Capp

Andy Capp, created by Reg Smythe, has been running in the Daily Mirror and its sunday edition since 5th August 1957. It is a (usually) three panel humour strip about the day to day life of Andy, a workshy scrounger from the northeastern town of Hartlepool and his long suffering wife, Flo. Andy is a short tempered drunk whose principle interests are playing Snooker with his mate Chalkie White (whose wife, Rube, is Flo's best friend), betting on horses, his racing pigeons and trying to pick up women (in early stories, he was frequently portrayed as a wife beater until this came to be seen as too politically incorrect; he remains, seemingly, a serial adulterer though). Paradoxically, he is also frequently depicted as a fiercely protective husband to Flo, who loves him deeply but often demonstrates this by hitting him with a rolling pin when he comes home drunk (which he does every night). Andy is never seen without his cloth cap pulled down over his eyes, even in the bath, and always used to be depicted with a cigarette in his mouth until this too came to be seen as unacceptable some time in the 1980's. He and Flo are perpetually broke despite her working long hours as a cleaner (Andy does not work) and their attempts to avoid Percy the rent collector are often a focus of the strip. Other characters include Jackie the barman, the Vicar and Flo's frequently heard but never seen mother, who Andy refers to as "missus". The strip usually revolves around either the Capp household or the pub (other locations crop up occasionally, such as the Marriage Guidance office which the Capp's have been visiin g for some years) and characters such as Flo and Jackie frequently share their opinions of Andy directly with the readers. Since Smythe's death, the strip has continued under other creators including writer Roger Kettle and artist Roger Mahoney.

The IPC humour character Buster (star of the comic of the same name) was originally billed as "Buster, Son of Andy Capp" (though the connection was soon dropped) and the Mirror later ran a strip in the 1990's called Mandy Capp, supposedly about Andy's niece, presumably the daughter of Flo's older sister Polly (again, the connection was later dropped and the strip became simply "Mandy").