Terence "Larry" Parkes was a popular cartoonist from the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

. His work, consisting largely of single drawings featuring an absurdist view of normal life, was published in many magazines and newspapers, particularly Punch

Punch (magazine)

Punch, or the London Charivari was a British weekly magazine of humour and satire established in 1841 by Henry Mayhew and engraver Ebenezer Landells. Historically, it was most influential in the 1840s and 50s, when it helped to coin the term "cartoon" in its modern sense as a humorous illustration...

and Private Eye

Private Eye

Private Eye is a fortnightly British satirical and current affairs magazine, edited by Ian Hislop.Since its first publication in 1961, Private Eye has been a prominent critic and lampooner of public figures and entities that it deemed guilty of any of the sins of incompetence, inefficiency,...

. The pen name under which he worked was apparently inspired by actor Larry Parks

Larry Parks

Larry Parks was an American stage and movie actor. He was born Samuel Klausman Lawrence Parks. His career was virtually ended when he admitted to having once been a member of a Communist party cell, which led to his blacklisting by all Hollywood studios.-Background:Parks grew up in Joliet,...

.

Parkes's cartooning style was extremely minimalist. No speech bubbles or captions were used, and he often used a few lines to suggest the outline of some feature, such as an arm or a leg, preferring to concentrate on the main idea of the drawing. Especially in the early part of his career, when cartoonists were expected to produce polished work, he was frequently admonished by his editors to "fill in" his drawings before they would be published. As styles changed in the 1960s and 1970s, his more fluid, off-the-cuff style became his trademark. He was compared to Bill Tidy

Bill Tidy

William Edward "Bill" Tidy, MBE , is a British cartoonist, writer and television personality, known chiefly for his comic strips. Bill was awarded an MBE in 2000 for "Services to Journalism". He is noted for his charitable work, particularly for the Lord's Taverners, which he has supported for over...

, both for his particular way of drawing people, and for the speed at which he could work.

In later life, he drew a series of cartoons depicting his usual subjects as if they were sculptures by Rodin

Auguste Rodin

François-Auguste-René Rodin , known as Auguste Rodin , was a French sculptor. Although Rodin is generally considered the progenitor of modern sculpture, he did not set out to rebel against the past...

 on display in a gallery. Instead of "Rodin's Thinker" or "Rodin's Kiss" his art-lovers saw sculptures such as "Rodin's Babysitter" and "Rodin's Cleaning Lady". He extended this into parodies of other works of art, such as the Supper at Emmaus, his version being "the presentation of the bill".
He also did the cartoon sketches that were used on Carry On film titles, and in the late 1980s provided illustrations for W H Smith

W H Smith

WHSmith plc is a British retailer, headquartered in Swindon, Wiltshire, England. It is best known for its chain of high street, railway station, airport, hospital and motorway service station shops selling books, stationery, magazines, newspapers, and entertainment products...

's own-label stationery packaging.

External links

• Official website.
• Obituary published in The Guardian
  The Guardian
  The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
  
  .
• Larry cartoons at the Chris Beetles gallery. This is a commercial site.