Rupert Bear is a children's comic strip

Comic strip

A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....

 character, who features in a series of books based around his adventures. The character was created by the English artist Mary Tourtel

Mary Tourtel

Mary Tourtel was an English artist and creator of Rupert Bear.-Biography:Tourtel was born as Mary Caldwell and raised in an artistic family, daughter of a stained glass artist and stonemason. She studied art under Thomas Sidney Cooper at the Sidney Cooper School of Art in Canterbury, and became a...

 and first appeared in the Daily Express

Daily Express

The Daily Express switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1977 and was bought by the construction company Trafalgar House in the same year. Its publishing company, Beaverbrook Newspapers, was renamed Express Newspapers...

on 8 November 1920. Rupert's initial purpose was to win sales from the rival Daily Mail

Daily Mail

The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...

and Daily Mirror. Since then, he has become significant to children's culture in the United Kingdom. In 1935, the mantle of Rupert artist and storyteller was taken over by Alfred Bestall

Alfred Bestall

Alfred Edmeades "Fred" Bestall, MBE , was the author and illustrator of Rupert Bear for the London Daily Express, from 1935 to 1965.-Early life:...

, who was previously an illustrator for Punch and other glossy magazines.