Ben Wicks, CM (October 1, 1926 – September 10, 2000) was a British-born Canadian cartoonist, illustrator, journalist and author.Wicks was a Cockney born into a poor, working-class family in London's East End near London Bridge. He learned to play the saxophone in the British Army and toured Europe in a band with author Leonard Bigg also from London. He emigrated to Canada in 1957 with his wife Doreen Wicks with just $25. He found work as a milkman in Calgary and then joined the Canadian Army as a musician and began studying cartooning from books. Wicks came across a list in a library of magazines willing to purchase cartoons and began trying his hand—his first major success was being published by the Saturday Evening Post.In 1963, he travelled to Toronto to assess cartooning possibilities and met Toronto Telegram 'The Giants' daily illustrated feature cartoonist, Norman Drew who advised him to move to Toronto. Wicks then moved to Toronto to work for the Toronto Telegram and his cartoon, The Outcasts, was soon syndicated in over 50 newspapers. His cartoons were simply drawn but were very topical and witty and became popular with readers and were picked up by the Toronto Star after the Telegram ceased operations in 1971. At its height, his daily cartoon, now called Wicks was carried by 84 Canadian and more than 100 American newspapers.Wicks had a self-effacing but charming personality and became a popular guest on television and radio shows and had his own television show on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in the 1970s. He also created and illustrated the Katie and Orbie series of children's books written by his daughter Susan which in 1994 were turned into an animated television program for Family in Canada and for PBS in the United States.I was the first person to employ Ben Wicks when he arrived in Calgary early in 1957. I was a partner in Fisher Trade Services Ltd., a company set up to supply the printing industry with camera-ready art and short run printing projects. An immigrant myself from Britain in 1952, I was trained at the old Luton School of Arts, now Barnfield College, and had just left my job as head of a small art and printing department at Motor Car Supply Company to form a partnership with Art Brown, of Graphic Arts Supply Ltd.Ben had been canvassing all the suitable companies in Calgary, and came into my place one day accompanied by his wife Doreen. I explained we had just started operations and simply couldn't afford to take on staff. Ben promptly offered to work for nothing on a trial period and I was impressed by his persistence and determination, plus his obvious ability to get along with people. He showed me some samples of his work and I was frankly unimpressed, but there was something about him that appealed to me. I was in need of a short holiday as the stress of our start-up was beginning to tell so I decided to take him at his word. Ben was something of a disaster during his stay with me as he simply hadn't t
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