EMILE MERCIER

According to Wikipedia: "Emile Mercier (10 August 1901 – 17 March 1981) was an Australian cartoonist, best known for his iconic cartoons regularly published in the Sydney Sun newspaper from 1949 to 1968, and which have been collected and published in 11 books.

He was born in Nouméa, New Caledonia on 10 August 1901, the son of a French baker. He came to Australia in 1919 and took a clerical position with a commercial house doing translations during the day and spending the evenings taking classes at the Julian Ashton Art School. In the early 1920s following the sale of one of his drawings to a Sydney newspaper he quit his job to make a living from drawing. Constrained by his limited command of English and unable to sell further drawings Mercier took a variety of jobs, including office boy, working on coastal ships, a spruiker at the Royal Easter Show, acting in stage melodramas. From the 1920s to 1940 he worked as a freelance artist selling cartoons and illustrations to Melbourne Punch, Smith's Weekly, The Bulletin and other smaller publications. In 1940 he obtained regular freelance work with Truth and The Daily Mirror. He created two comic strips for Truth, News Splashes and Week Spots. In 1941 Pen Pushers commenced in the ABC Weekly and soon after he linked up with Frank Johnson Publications.

In 1949 Mercier was employed as a cartoonist on a full-time basis with Sydney's The Sun newspaper, a position he held until his retirement in 1968."