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
Rupert Bear strip with illustrations accompanying text, called "text comics", as opposed to text being incorporated into the art in speech bubbles etc. Bestall developed the classic Rupert story format: the story is told in picture form (generally two panels each day in the newspaper and four panels to a page in the annuals), in simple page-headers, in simple two-line-per-image verse and then as running prose at the foot. Rupert Annuals can therefore be "read" on four levels. He also established the shape and form of the Rupert stories. Rupert's unspectacular debut was in a single panel, the first of 36 episodes