Classic Cartoons

Martin Plimmer on Trevor Holder (Holte)

ONE OF the five people nominated for the 1933 Hall of Fame by Vanity Fair was HT Webster - a cartoonist. This seems odd to us now because cartoonists are no longer cherished. "The age of the cartoon is past," says Trevor Holder, who drew this. "Most publications are run by accountants, who don't see any point in paying people to do little drawings."

Holder was a bored director of a graphics company until he gave it up for full-time cartoon work at the age of 40. He achieved his "ultimate goal" - getting a cartoon accepted by Punch - within a month, after which his darkly imagined scenarios and mouse-like protagonists played an important part in the final act of the magazine's 151 years as a cartoon institution: he drew Punch and Judy walking into the sunset for the old-style Punch's last cover in 1992.