Rupert Bear Rupert Bear Rupert Bear is a children's comic strip character created by the English artist Mary Tourtel and first appearing in the "Daily Express" newspaper on 8 November 1920. Rupert's initial purpose was to win sales from the rival "Daily Mail" and "Daily Mirror". In 1935, the mantle of Rupert artist and storyteller was taken over by Alfred Bestall, who was previously an illustrator for "Punch" and other glossy magazines. Bestall proved to be successful in the field of children's literature and worked on Rupert stories and artwork into his 90s. More recently, various other artists and writers have continued
Daily Express other populist newspapers. Arthur Christiansen became editor in October 1933. Under his direction sales climbed from two million in 1936 to four million in 1949. He retired in 1957. The paper also featured Alfred Bestall's "Rupert Bear" cartoon and satirical cartoons by Carl Giles which it began publishing in the 1940s. On 24 March 1933, a front-page headline, "Judea Declares War on Germany" (because of the Anti-Nazi boycott of 1933), was published. During the late 1930s, the paper advocated the appeasement policies of the Chamberlain government, due to the influence of Lord Beaverbrook. The ruralist author Henry Williamson wrote for