March 26th - The Potts and Uncle Dick

A Year in Comics - March 26th

The Potts and Uncle Dick

James Newton 'Jim' Russell was born on March 26th 1909 in Campsie, New South Wales in Australia.  Joining the Sydney Evening News in 1928, he became Australia's youngest political cartoonist.  However, when the Evening News folded in 1931, he became a sports caricaturist at The Referee, until joining Smith's Weekly in 1933, where he became Australia's youngest daily cartoonist.  In 1939 he briefly interrupted his cartooning career, joining the Australian Davis Cup team to the United States as a tennis writer.

In 1939, Russell took over the daily strips of cartoonist Stan Cross (1888-1977), including his daily You and Me, which was renamed Mr. and Mrs. Pott, before becoming The Potts.  Originally a commentary on daily politics, the cartoon was lightened in tone under Russell. This change in tone - insisted by his editors - was somewhat against Russel's wishes, who circumvented the demands by introducing a new, own character, Uncle Dick, who took over the less desirable caracteristics formerly portrayed by Mr. and Mrs. Potts.

Following the outbreak of the Second World War, Russell tried to join the Royal Australian Air Force, but was turned down for service.  Instead, his war effort came in the form of two satirical strips - Adolf, Hermann and Musso and Schmitt der Sphy, both of which ran until the end of the war in 1945.

Post-War, Australian import restrictions meant that domestically-produced comics took the major share of the Australian market; seeing a chance, Russell started his own publishing company with his brother, with Russell himself drawing material under the pseudonym Mick Newton.  This lasted just a couple of years, with his company folding in 1950, the same year Smith's Weekly also folded. The Melbourne Herald subsequently acquired the copyright to the Potts, with Russell becoming a writer and cartoonist for the publication.  When he retired from the newspaper in 1976, the Melbourne Herald transferred the copyright to The Potts to him, allowing him to continue his run on the comic until his death on August 15th 2001 at the age of 92 - by which time he had drawn the cartoon without assistance for an unprecedented 62 years.

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